Daughter of Fire

by justjstuff

Summary:

Sakura got up and didn’t bother brushing the dirt from her dress. She had a feeling she was about to get even dirtier.

She looked at the memorial stone one last time, memorizing the characters without even realizing she was doing it. It would serve from that moment on as a reminder of her determination. She wouldn’t let Naruto and Sasuke join the names carved on that stone.

That was her nindo.

Notes:

Hey, everyone!

This little monster hasn’t left my mind for quite some time now and I finally hit the 10 chapters mark I promised myself to write before posting. For those of you who follow me on Tumblr, this is the fic most commonly referred by me as “Bad Idea TM”. Let me tell you, starting a KakaSaku Sakura-centric fic that begins with her as a thirteen yo genin might not have been the best idea I ever had. I won’t get into the meta I have for this fic in the first chapter, but expect full out rants in the future hehe, if anyone wants to talk headcannons I’m always interested.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Inhale, Exhale then Move On

Sakura took a deep breath. The smell of Land of Fire native trees and wet grass assaulted her senses and the familiarity of it calmed the wild rush of her head. It didn’t take long for the utter despair of the situation to come back to her, the full force of it crashing against her chest and taking her breath away in the worst possible way.

 

It had been a relatively normal day.

 

Her mom had asked her to go grocery shopping after breakfast and her feet made the unconscious decision to go by the training grounds out of habit. Before she knew it, the memorial stone was reflecting the sun in her eyes and she couldn’t breathe.

 

She fell to her knees in the middle of training ground 3 and trid to get air back in her lungs but ended up choking on it instead. She didn’t know when it happened, but suddenly her hands were on the soft soil beneath her and her back was hunched, her body shaking so much that she couldn’t tell how she didn’t just fall apart from it.

 

She didn’t get how her joints were still attached, how she didn’t  just turn into a pile of limbs right there on the cool floor.

 

For the first time in her life, she was upset but didn’t cry.

 

She was lying, though, because her whole world had turned upside down and left her without a place to stand, she had passed upset about three corners back but, still, she couldn’t cry. She could, it seemed, dry heave against the grass and choke on her spit.

 

She was alone.

 

She was completely, utterly alone. Team Seven would never be again. Naruto had left to study under a Sannin, Sasuke had left Konoha—Sasuke had defected Konoha for the traitor Sannin and oh, shit did that make him a missing nin? Would she have to go after him and face him like an enemy—and Team Seven was over.   

 

Kakashi-sensei—no. She couldn’t call him that anymore.

 

Sakura wasn’t stupid. She knew now that he’d been placed in charge of her team because of the boys, so that he could mold them to his fighting style and so that Konoha could have the perfect attack team. Now that it was only her left, it made no sense to stay a team. She wasn’t a melee fighter, she didn’t have good chakra reserves for flashy ninjutsu.

 

She wasn’t good at anything .

 

All the talking she did at the Chunin Exams of being a real ninja, of not being left behind anymore. Hacking her hair off to prove a point. The big revelation she had and absolutely nothing to show for it.

 

Nothing changed. She was still the one being left behind.

 

Unbidden, her mind started its usual runthrough of why, where, how it usually did when she was trying to figure something out.

 

The last few weeks flashed through her mind’s eye. She had barely done any training. Kakashi—Hatake-san, she supposed he was from now on. He’d always used a peculiar method of pushing D-Ranks on top of them to teach. She could see why he did that now. He’d been since the beginning trying to desperately make a team out of them. Trying to ingrain the teamwork into their habits so that maybe, maybe it would be enough to make Sasuke stay.

 

Sakura could see now that he had been absolutely, completely unequipped to handle them. It wasn’t his fault, she knew logically, but bitter resentment still settled like a knot on the back of her throat.

 

It was the same resentment that she felt towards herself, in a way. She had done everything for Sasuke-kun. She had tried again and again to make him like her and when that turned out to be almost impossible, she tried even harder just to make him happy.

 

Sakura felt the image she had in her head, the one with the carefree young boy smiling at his nii-san, break into a thousand pieces. For years she thought she could bring that boy back, she thought she could be the reason he smiled like that again, but now she knew better.

 

It was silly to think she could ever be enough to make him stay. If Kakashi-sensei hadn’t been able to, if Naruto hadn’t been able to, she stood no chance against the darkness inside of him.

 

Thinking of Naruto made a chill go down her spine, another wave of nausea hitting her fast because fuck —and she had never uttered that word before, not even thought it to herself, but she felt it was justified because they had almost killed each other.

 

They had almost killed her too but that seemed a bit inconsequential. She would have been just collateral damage in that fight but those two? They were purposefully aiming deadly jutsu at each other, all because of a feud no one had noticed was getting out of control.

 

It was weird, thinking badly of Sasuke-kun, but she couldn’t help how analytically her mind was going through the past six months of her life.

 

Sasuke was jealous .

 

He was jealous and he was insecure and he was so freaking entitled. He was angry at Naruto—no matter that Naruto was the closest thing he had to a brother now—because he thought that he was the one who was supposed to be the strongest. Because he had a mission in life to get revenge on his nii-san and he was wrong .

 

Her heart bled for the childhood he lost and for the horrible things he had to see but he was still wrong and she could finally admit it.

 

Unexpectedly, knowing this and admitting it to herself took a weight out of her shoulders. She thought for a very long time that Sasuke could do no wrong. That he would avenge—and only now she stopped to think that it meant killing, actually murdering his own brother—and that he would come back happy and eager to start a family with her. She’d thought that it was her role to be there for him and only now, after she had been left completely alone could she see how wrong it all was.

 

Another wave of nausea forced her forehead to the ground. She knew what happened to ninja whose team disbanded. They would sometimes be carted around to fill in any spot if they were good enough but, for the most part, ninja who didn’t have a squad, especially gennin or those who didn’t have a clan backing them up, would become paper ninja. Lost in the archives or, if they were lucky enough, the mission assignment desk.

 

She didn’t want that. She wanted to stand side by side with the Rookie 9, she wanted to be strong, she wanted to protect .

 

Sakura took a few deep breaths, her lungs finally filling properly, before she leaned back and crossed her legs beneath her. The memorial stone was still reflecting sunlight but this time she let her eyes trace the characters on the stone and she thought .

 

Sakura thought and she planned and she analysed because contrary to what despair had led her to think she was good at something. She had been the first of her class in written exams, she had known all the questions on the first task of the Chunin Exams, she was smart .

 

She couldn’t sit and wallow. Crying and whining had contributed absolutely nothing in keeping the boys safe. It was a good thing that the tears hadn’t come to her in her little breakdown because she had to get used to it.

 

From now on, she wouldn’t cry anymore.

 

A flash of green crossed her thoughts and she remembered Lee. She remembered his stupid bets against himself and how he couldn’t use chakra and it was like she was hit by an epiphany. Lee was strong. Lee was stronger and faster than anyone she’d ever seen that wasn’t a Jounin.

 

Granted, he was no match for Gaara at the end but he still managed to crack his armour and hold his own for quite some time considering Gaara had a monster inside him.

 

Lee did it all by training.

 

It wasn’t the kind of training that Sakura usually did with Team Seven where they spared or practiced kunai throwing until they were tired and went their separate ways. It was the kind of training that the only excuse for stopping was when you collapsed or passed out.

 

Sakura tried hard to think back on one afternoon that she left as sweaty and exhausted as the boys and couldn’t. Whenever she started getting tired, she would stop, lay down on her sensei’s back and watch the world go up and down with each push up he did.

 

There would be no more sensei for her to laze about with, no more bickering between Naruto and Sasuke-kun to distract her from training. Sakura was alone now and she had to up her game immediately if she planned on standing side by side with the boys.

 

She had to focus on her strengths, she decided.

 

Sakura knew she wasn’t exactly proficient in taijutsu like Sasuke-kun was but she had held her own against Ino, right? And Ino was the top kunoichi of their class, she had trained for years with her clan, that had to mean something. It was likely that she had some kind of predisposition for hand to hand combat if her instincts had guided her so well in that fight.

 

She had excellent chakra control, if Hatake-san was to be believed. She had managed to master the tree climbing exercise her first try while the boys struggled the whole night for it. She was good at that.

 

An effervescent kind of energy sizzled through her veins. It was the same feeling she got when she was reading a book and there was just a few chapters left that she had to finish before dawn, it was determination settling in her bones and she knew she wouldn’t give up easily.

 

Naruto will be gone from the village for some time, years if she had to guess and Sakura will use that time to become the best version of her she could be. She had to do it.

 

She will stand next to Naruto as equals when he came back and they both will get Sasuke and bring him back to Konoha by force if necessary.

 

Sakura got up and didn’t bother brushing the dirt from her dress. She had a feeling she was about to get even dirtier.

 

She looked at the memorial stone one last time, memorizing the characters without even realizing she was doing it. It would serve from that moment on as a reminder of her determination. She wouldn’t let Naruto and Sasuke join the names carved on that stone.

 

That was her nindo.

 

-

 

Her first stop was the hospital. She knew Lee was being kept there for observation after he overexerted himself during the rescue mission and she needed his help.

 

Sakura didn’t know any jounin that had the time to help her with a new taijutsu training regimen, didn’t see much of any jounin at the village, to be honest. They were all in high demand nowadays, Konoha had to show to the other villages that they were still strong.

 

It was all a farce, she knew. Konoha was barely making ends meet with all the reconstruction going on. It was a miracle that Tsunade-hime had accepted the post. Konoha was in shambles and in desperate need of money, it was a tough time to take on the mantle.

 

By the time Sakura got to Konoha’s General, the sun was already high up in the sky and the streets were buzzing with people. The sounds of construction were all around her and the loud hammering was giving her a headache.

 

She had just reached the entrance when Lee bustled out of the double doors, thumb up in the air and teeth glinting in a way that made Sakura check herself for any genjutsu.

 

“Yosh! It’s a beautiful day to go back to training!” He shouted to the skys.

 

“Lee!” A girl with twin dark buns on top of her head came up behind him and put him on a chokehold. Sakura remembered her to be his teammate. “Tsunade-sama said you shouldn’t go doing anything strenuous for the next month!”

 

Sakura was pretty sure the way she was choking him was considered strenuous but decided against pointing it out. Instead, she stepped forward and made her presence known.

 

“Ano, Lee-san?” She put on her best friendly smile and let Inner scoff at their antics at the back of her mind.

 

“Sakura-san!” Lee finally got himself of the girl’s hold and beamed at her. “This morning just got twice as beautiful!”

 

“Eh, sure?” Sakura cringed at her own response but couldn’t think of anything better to say. “I need to ask you something.”

 

“Anything for the most beautiful flower in the village!” Lee grinned encouragingly at her and Sakura could swear there was a rainbow behind him for a moment.

 

“I wanted to know if you had any tips for how to enhance my taijutsu skills,” Sakura fiddled awkwardly with her hands for a moment. “I don’t have the best chakra reserves and, well, I really admired the way you overcome your own… difficulties.”

 

Sakura forced herself to meet his eyes and was taken aback by the tears she saw there.

 

“Ah, Lee-san, I didn’t mean to offend you!” She waved her hands in front of her a bit desperately. “Gomen!”

 

“You could never offend me, beautiful Sakura-san!” The older boy stepped forward and grabbed her hands, tears streaming down his face. “I am most honored that Sakura-san thinks so highly of me! This is truly the best of days! From now on, I will make it my mission to help you achieve mastery of the taijutsu arts! Come with me now! We will begin training immediately!”

 

And then he was running back the way she came. Sakura stood there, completely dumbstruck before her body finally caught up and she forced herself to move after him.

 

“Chotto matte! Lee-san!”

 

Sakura heard footsteps behind her before the girl upped her pace to run besides her.

 

“The beautiful Sakura-san, huh?” She sent her an appraising look. “I’m Tenten. Nice to meet you officially.”

 

“Just Sakura is fine,” Sakura laughed embarrassed. “Yoroshiku.”

 

“Heard you managed to tie with the best kunoichi in your year during the exams. I wish I hadn’t been in the hospital for that fight. It’s always refreshing seeing an all girls fight, you know?”

 

Sakura supposed she could see where the girl was coming from. Kunoichi ratio in the academy was about pretty much the same as boys but very few of them graduated and even fewer made it past genin. It was good to see strong females fighting. Having one of those for Hokage was a huge thing.

 

“It was a pity that you and that girl from Suna weren’t a good match,” Sakura offered. “It was clear that you have a lot of skill.”

 

Tenten grinned at her and shot her two thumbs up, reminding Sakura so much of Lee that she had to laugh.

 

By the time they reached training ground 12, Lee was already doing some one-armed pushups.

 

“Sakura-san!” He jumped to his feet. “Let’s spar!”

 

And then a fist was coming straight to her face.

 

Sakura didn’t have any time to do anything but dodge and that’s what she did. She dropped low and let his arm sail past her as a squeak escaped her lips. In the next second, however, Lee brought his leg up and kicked her faster than she could blink. She skidded along the forest floor, her ribs already aching.

 

For a while they kept at it, Lee moving faster than she could comprehend and Sakura falling back on her basic Academy katas to either block or dodge. She managed to get a few punches in but it was almost humiliating how easily he countered them, as if she wasn’t giving her all.

 

“Yosh!” Lee stopped suddenly and bowed the reconciliation sign and she readily retributed before promptly falling to the ground in exhaustion. “Your basics are strong as expected, Sakura-san!”

 

Sakura managed to grumble a reply from the heap she made on the ground but he didn’t seem put off by her surliness.

 

“You lack any originality in your attacks, your speed and stamina are both those expected of Academy students and you should definitely improve your strength,” he said this all with a beam on his face.

 

Sakura gaped at him, not really expecting him to be so blunt in his criticism and Tenten burst out laughing from her position beneath the shade of a tree. Sakura felt her cheeks burn and Inner let out a string of expletives in the back of her mind.

 

“Don’t worry, Sakura-san! If you work hard like I know you will, I can guarantee that in in a month, you’ll be in a place where you can easily beat Ino-san!”

 

It was odd. Hearing someone express such belief in her was so new and it felt so… good that for a moment Sakura could only look at his blindingly green form with wide eyes. It wasn’t too long before the biggest smile she could remember giving someone stretched her lips.

 

She would do this. She would work hard at whatever he taught her and she wouldn’t complain once. Lee believed in her.

 

“I will not disappoint you, Lee-san!”

 

Lee and Tenten were both looking at her with matching pinks on their cheeks but Sakura didn’t have any time to ponder at that because Lee quickly composed himself and gave her a thumbs up.

 

“Yosh! The Youth shines bright with you, Sakura-san!” His teeth sparkled. “Every morning for the first week, you will run twenty laps around this training ground. After that, you will do a hundred sit-ups, fifty push-ups, a hundred-and-fifty squats and two minutes of planking!”

 

Lee kept on exclaiming her training regimen for a while and it was all Sakura could do not to let her mouth gape open. That was a lot. But if Lee thought she could do it, then she was going to prove him right.

 

By the time she did all the training with Lee doing at least four times as much of every exercise she did, she was exhausted. Ready-to-collapse tired and it was glorious . She felt so accomplished, she could barely contain herself.

 

Tenten had stopped her own weapons practice some time ago to go get them some food and the three of them sat around the little containers beneath the shade of a tree on the edge of the training grounds. Sakura was hungrier than she’d even been and not a single thought was given to her diet.

 

Who cared about carbs, anyway. She was starving .

 

They didn’t talk for a while, simply enjoying their food in contented silence. Lee kept cutting leaves in half whenever one fell, Tenten swirled a short sword around with one hand and Sakura just kept wolfing everything down without even taking a breath.

 

“Is that a tantou?” She cocked her head at Tenten.

 

“Yep,” the girl smiled at her and gave the sword hilt first for Sakura to give a try. “I can teach you how to use it if you want.”

 

“Really?” Sakura stared wide-eyed at the girl as a sudden wave of gratitude washed through her. Who’d have thought that Team Guy was so helpful?

 

“Yeah, sure! You are taking the next Chunin Exams, right? We could train together until then!”

 

“Thank you, Tenten,” Sakura smiled at her. “I don’t know how I can repay you.”

 

“No need.” Tenten waved her hand around, dismissing the idea. “The guys can be a bit too much at times. It’ll be nice to train with you.”

 

Sakura went home that night completely exhausted. The sweat was still drying on her skin even as the sky had turned dark blue hours ago and her legs were shaking so bad she had no idea how she managed to walk to the civilian district.

 

She was on her threshold when she remembered her kaa-san had asked her to buy the groceries.

 

“Crap.”

Chapter 2: Whatever it Takes

Notes:

You guys blew me away with your response to the first chapter!!1! Honestly, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, left a kudo or bookmarked this fic, you guys make my day! This chapter may shock some of you but as I said before this fic will be dealing with sensitive content. This is an anime about child soldiers after all.

Enjoy!

It was exactly three weeks and four days later that Sakura received a summons from the Hokage, first thing in the morning, in the form of a chunin messenger right outside her door.

 

She had set up a nice little routine for herself so far and this was the first break in the norm for her. In the mornings, right as the first rays of sunlight hit her face, she would get up and go to training ground 3 to do her first set of exercises. She stayed there until she finished Lee’s workout at about ten o’clock.

 

She would then head back home, shower and eat breakfast with her parents before heading to the mission assignment desk to scrounge up whatever D-rank they had available at the moment.

 

She had decided long ago that she needed both the money and the missions in her curriculum if she wanted to go anywhere. It had started with a normal training session with Tenten in which she had realised she would have to buy a tantou of her own and soon.

 

The allowance her parents gave her wasn’t nearly enough to cover the cleaning kit for the short sword.

 

So she worked hard every morning doing odd jobs around the village; helping a construction site, walking someone’s dog, painting a fence. Anything she could get her hands on.

 

She had her lunch at the memorial stone by the three stumps where Team Seven had their first lunch together. She used that time to think about her progress and, in those days where the training was particularly intense and her muscles straining, she liked to let her eyes rove over the smooth characters on the stone and reminded herself of why she was doing this.

 

Her afternoons were spent with Lee and Tenten, sparring or practicing advanced katas and tantou work. Every week, Lee would give her a heavier set of weights and she would practice her genjutsu by concealing the hideous orange of them. Whenever they had a mission, Sakura would head to the library and look up any genjutsu material available for gennin.

 

It was a pitiful collection to be honest, but it had good books on theory and basic groundwork, which Sakura figured would come in handy in the future, and it was enough for her to teach herself some D-rank genjutsu and how to conceal the weights.

 

The break in her routine was jarring, to say the least. What could the Hokage possibly want with her ? She was a no one now that Team Seven had officially dissolved. A civilian genin with no outstanding skills besides her brains.

 

Just the thought of that sent another pang through her chest.

 

Sakura was broken out of her reverie by a familiar face outside of the Hokage’s office. Or rather, half of a face.

 

“Sakura-san.”

 

“Shino!” Sakura stared wide eyed at him. She hadn’t seen him since the Chunin Exams. “Are you here to see Godaime-sama too?”

 

“Aa,” was his only reply.

 

Sakura stood awkwardly with him for a while, not knowing if she should continue the conversation or not. They had never been the best of friends growing up, but there was still a closeness that being Rookie 9 entailed and she didn’t know how to act around him.

 

Should she ask after his family or something? Only, she knew that the Aburame were an awfully closed off clan and wasn’t sure he would take it well.

 

“Enter!”

 

She was saved from further awkwardness by her Hokage. Without hesitation, she strode into the room and bowed.

 

“Hokage-sama.” She deferred and Shino echoed a second later.

 

“Haruno Sakura,” Sakura raised herself to look at the Hokage for the first time and was awestruck.

 

The woman wore a sensible green haori on top of a low-cut top and had beautiful blonde hair that fell over her shoulders in two pigtails. Her eyes were a bright honey that spoke of years of sorrow and she was easily the most beautiful woman Sakura had ever seen. The Godaime looked much younger than Sakura was expecting.

 

She didn’t let her admirations show and instead let Inner swoon in the back of her mind while keeping a straight face even though it took everything in her.

 

“Aburame Shino,” Sakura saw Shino get up from his own bow in the corner of her eye.

 

“You’re both here today because of an oversight on my part,” Sakura recognized that to be an apology of sorts. She was confused as hell but managed to keep her straight, expressionless face. “I was catching up to the village’s finances and completely disregarded the mission you both undertook during the attack.”

 

Sakura couldn’t help the small frown that settled between her brows. Mission? Was this about the orders she took to follow Sasuke-kun when he went after Gaara? She wouldn’t exactly call that a mission even though Kakashi had said it was. It had been more of a ‘follow-your-teammates-before-they-do-something-stupid-yet-again’ kind of thing.

 

“Yesterday I finally got the full report on what happened.” Senju Tsunade leveled her chin on top of linked fingers and fixed her gaze on Sakura. “Haruno Sakura, you showed great abilities in breaking out of an A-rank genjutsu without assistance. You followed orders perfectly and was able to work well under pressure while breaking your comrades out of the jutsu and escaping the team of oto-nin. In your fight during the Chunin Exams you held your own and fought admirably against the Yamanaka kid.

 

“Aburame Shino, you took great initiative in following your fellow ninja into battle and showed great skill while fighting against Sabaku no Kankuro. Konoha isn’t known to make these exceptions since the Third Shinobi War. However, the council and I have agreed that the village is in need of your services as certified chunin.”

 

There was a pause in which Sakura couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the blood rushing through her ears and then the Godaime was speaking again.

 

“However unorthodox, you both earned this. Congratulations.”

 

A woman in a black kimono stepped forward with two bundles in her hands and Sakura had a fleeting moment to think what a dangerous, dangerous woman she was if Sakura hadn’t noticed she was there throughout the conversation before she was being handed something. A flak jacket.

 

Her chunin jacket.

 

Sakura felt the Godaime’s eyes on her and looked up to meet them. There was a glint in her gaze that left her wondering if she was supposed to say something. It surely looked like Hokage-sama was waiting for Sakura to do… something.

 

But before she could blurt out the first thing that came to mind, a chunin she often saw at the gates burst through the doorway.

 

“Tsunade-sama!”

 

“What’s the meaning of this, Kotetsu?” The Godaime frowned at the man.

 

“Tachibana-sama just entered the village!” Kotetsu panted. “You told me to let you know immediately when he did.”

 

“Shit,” the blonde cursed and massaged her temples. “Aburame, you’re dismissed.” She opened her eyes and fixed them on Sakura. “Haruno, you just got your first C-rank as a chunin.”

 

“Hokage-sama?” Sakura cocked her head to the side as Shino and the gate guard quickly left the office.

 

“Tachibana Sadatoshi is a samurai from the Land of Iron. Rich and not very personable but we go way back and he accepted my invitation. Do you know why I brought him here?” The Hokage raised an eyebrow at her.

 

Sakura thought about it for a moment.

 

“You want to show him that Konoha’s fine after Suna’s betrayal and the attack… right?” The blonde stayed quiet so Sakura took it as a sign that she should keep speaking. “Tetsu no Kuni is a neutral ground, sure, but they value honour and integrity and with Suna’s betrayal we have to make some kind of statement that we remain loyal to the peace we fought for.” Sakura narrowed her eyes in thought. “Are you bringing anyone from Suna?”

 

It took a moment for Sakura to realise she was speaking so plainly to her Hokage but one look at the woman told her she didn’t really mind. Tsunade-hime had a small smirk on her pink lips and a pleased shine to her eyes.

 

“I wasn’t sure when he’d get here, so I asked Temari to come earlier in the week.” She nodded. “You’re to show him around the village after my meeting with him and as soon as he’s ready you begin your journey towards Tetsu. He already has a bodyguard with him but I offered you up as reinforcement and he was kind enough to insist on paying.” Sakura almost scoffed. The way the Godaime said kind confirmed her suspicions that the Tachibana guy was trying to subtly show off Iron’s wealth. “Choose two genin to take with you, you’ll be captain for this mission.”

 

Sakura’s heart beat faster as she bowed.

 

“Hai, Hokage-sama!”

 

“Sakura,” the Godaime stopped her before she could leave, “Tachibana is a big investor in the tourism industry. This meeting is also important for Konoha’s economy.”

 

Sakura knew where she was getting. In her tour, Sakura had to make sure Tachibana-sama saw the most prosperous districts, those that had been unharmed during the attack. Preferably how active the commerce in the village was.

 

“Understood.” Sakura nodded.

 

“You have about two hours to collect your subordinates and your things. Don’t forget to also pack something warm enough for snow.” The Hokage shot her a look that was a little too sharp not to have a deeper meaning. “Dismissed.”

 

Sakura bowed one last time and left, almost bumping into the man that was waiting outside the door. It was the same one who had come to warn Tsunade-sama.

 

He was taller than her but not by much, she was afterall tall for her age at all her five ft four glory. His hair was black and spiky and his eyes were half-lidded and equally as dark. A weird bandage ran across the bridge of his nose and covered his chin, like he had some serious injury but Sakura couldn’t see anything alarming.

 

“Kotetsu, right?” She gave him her best smile. “I’m Sakura. Nice to officially meet you.”

 

“Nice to meet you, kid. Congratulations too, I guess.” He narrowed his eyes at her after a second. “You look like you need something.”

 

Sakura thought about keeping up her cheery charade for a moment but then gave up on it. He seemed like a guy who appreciated bluntness over subterfuge.

 

“Could you get Hyuuga Hinata and Yamanaka Ino and tell them to meet me here in two hours with nice traditional-ish clothes and a pack for our escort trip?” She widened her eyes to plead at him.

 

“No, absolutely not.” Kotetsu shook his head but then covered his eyes dramatically. “That puppy eye isn’t going to work, I’m immune to it.”

 

She didn’t really know him but somehow doubted it. However, she didn’t have any time to spare so just decided to go for the killing blow.

 

“I’ll trade you a nightwatch this week.”

 

He peeked at her through his fingers and quickly stopped his melodramatics to shake her hand.

 

“Deal.”

 

And then he was gone.

 

Sakura almost ran home to get what she needed. Her dad was at the Haruno stall in the market and her mom was locked away in the office they had on the first floor of their house so she was able to make it to her room without any interruptions.

 

There she began planning.

 

Everything about the meeting with the Hokage was off. She shouldn’t have received this promotion. She didn’t deserve it. Shino had at least shown bravery at going after them but she had simply followed orders that day, not exactly chunin required characteristics.

 

Something the Hokage had said rang in her head, though. It hadn’t been done since the Third War. She had just received a field promotion and that could only mean one thing. Konoha was preparing for war.

 

No one said it out loud but it was there in every action they’d been taking so far and only now was Sakura realizing it. The sudden influx for high ranked missions meant Konoha was trying to appear active and strong, they were most certainly protecting their borders. The field promotions ensured that their numbers hadn’t dropped. Having a rich samurai from Iron-- the neutral land that would be extremely valuable during a war--come to Konoha.

 

It was all coming together now.

 

Suddenly Sakura realised what had been going on during that meeting. The Hokage’s pointed looks, how she had let Sakura, a completely inexperienced chunin, choose who would accompany her, how she hadn’t outright said anything about the mission and rather had Sakura draw her own conclusions. She was being tested .

 

The Godaime was testing her and she had clearly passed the first part of the test.

 

Now she had to make sure that Tachibana invested in Konoha. They needed the money and the support and just like sending jounins out to show that Konoha still had its manpower, this was to show that they also had economical power.

 

The weight of her responsibilities pressed on her so suddenly she couldn’t breathe for a second but it was easy to shake it off and put it in the back of her mind. The Godaime may be new to the Hokage position but she was smart, she definitely had a backup plan, Sakura just had to make sure there was no need for that.

 

-

 

Exactly an hour and forty-three minutes later she was watching by her place outside the Hokage’s office as Hinata and Ino came up the stairs chatting idly.

 

They looked exactly like Sakura hoped they would. A mix of traditional but with an edge that was definitely shinobi. Samurai respected history and tradition, the significance of putting two clan heirs as part of his detail wouldn’t be lost. Sakura wanted to remind him that Konoha’s ninja clans were strong.

 

Thinking about how she chose the girls made her realise that Tsunade probably did the same to choose her . The Haruno clan was very present throughout the nations, small to medium sized caravans that were perpetually on the road selling anything from civilian weapons to fine silk and a few families stationed in every village big enough that would accept them.

 

If you were a shinobi you probably wouldn’t recognize the name but their network was huge in the civilian world. Sakura knew that the head of the family, her great aunt Haruno Yuuka, lived next to the daimyō and payed frequent visits to him.

 

Just like that, her plan was set. She had at first just thought that showing him around the market and how well trades were going would be enough but now she realized she could do better. She would introduce Tachibana to her dad, he was afterall next in line if baa-sama’s son didn’t sire a heir.

 

Infertility or difficulty in conceiving was a common trait in the Haruno clan and because of that, her father and his cousins received the same training as children to take over in the future if necessary. Sakura was sure he could make an impact on Tachibana.

 

“Forehead!” Ino exclaimed and Sakura had to fight a wince at the volume. “I can’t believe you got promoted and I didn’t!”

 

Despite her words, Sakura could see that she didn’t resent the fact that Sakura was the first to get promoted. There was pride clearly shining in her pupiless eyes and Sakura felt warmth curling beneath her breastbone at the sight of it.

 

She was on an impasse, though.

 

Whenever Ino goaded her like that, she usually raised up to the challenge and the result was several loud insults thrown around until whoever lost left. After their conciliation and Sasuke leaving, they hadn’t had time to really settle themselves into their tentative friendship and this was the first time in a while that they’d seen each other.

 

Sakura could say something scathing back and they could fall back on old patterns but somehow the urge to fight wasn’t there. She had so much  more to worry about than some petty competition about who would get the cute boy in class.

 

She had to keep said boy and the others safe and for that, she had to make sure this mission went well. If Konoha went to war, it would be so much harder to protect them, especially Sasuke.

 

There was also the warm memory of how she and Ino used to be. Soft and supportive and how the girl had brought her out of her shell. She wanted that, she wanted her best friend. I don’t want a rival , Sakura thought, flashbacks of the hospital’s rooftop and what she had seen there rushing through her mind.

 

So she pushed the terrible images away and smiled softly at the blonde.

 

“I’m sure you’re next in line, Ino-chan.” Her smile grew a little ruefull. “You are the best kunoichi of our class, afterall. I was just at the right place at the right time, I guess.”

 

Ino’s look of surprise would have been funny if Sakura hadn’t noticed the beginning of tears shining on them. It was, shockingly enough, Hinata who broke the tension.

 

“Ano, Sakura-chan, c-congratulations,” Hinata smiled shyly at her. “Kotetsu-san told me you and Shino-kun made chunin. I’m very happy for you.”

 

Sakura beamed at the girl. They’d never been awfully close but she could relate to the overwhelming shyness that plagued the dark haired girl. If she hadn’t met Ino when she did, she would probably be just like her. She’d been oddly proud but still so sad when watching her fight with Neji.

 

“Thank you, Hinata-chan,” Sakura said sincerely. “Let me give you a quick runthrough of our mission and of what I need you to do.” She addressed both girls. “Then we’ll go over the gear you brought and what strategies I’ve decided for this mission, if that’s okay.”

 

It was weird to be giving orders to people who were in her same Academy class, even weirder because they were Rookie 9 just like her, but Sakura found it to be easier than she expected. Naruto always did say--no. Thinking of the blond--sunshine on his smile and the sky on his earnest eyes--would lead her down a slippery path that she had to avoid.

 

She had to focus on the mission.

 

After discussing the finer details with Hinata, Sakura turned back to her position by the door and almost had a heart attack when a second later a pair of blue eyes met her own.

 

Tachibana Sadatoshi was a tall, imposing man. His dark brown hair was in a low ponytail down his back and it was clear he was off duty because of his lack of armour. Instead, he wore traditional clothes. Blood red hakama and kimono with a black haori on top and setta sandals complete with tabi socks.  

 

He looked like he could be anywhere between late twenties to early fifties. He was beautiful, even with the scar that stretched his smile to the middle of his cheek on the left side of his face. All his physical attributes registered in the back of her mind but what really caught her attention wasn’t that.

 

Tachibana Sadatoshi was fast .

 

So fast that she didn’t have time to blink before he was towering over her and looking assessingly between her and Hinata.

 

Sakura had really wanted to put on her flak jacket for this mission--her first mission as a leader, her first chunin mission--but she knew that today was going to be all about appearances. So she took a traditional Haruno qipao dress with long sleeves, the same kind of shorts she usually wore but this ones reached just past her knees and donned the only black shinobi sandals she had.

 

She took care to sleek her hair into a short ponytail on the back of her head with her bangs framing her face and put her hitai-ate on her forehead like it was supposed to be.

 

She knew by the glint in his eyes--not exactly approval but definitely not disapproval--that she had succeeded in making a good first impression. She had to consciously try to repress her satisfied smile.  

 

“Tachibana-sama,” Sakura bowed low but was careful not to bow as low as she did her Hokage. “I’m Haruno Sakura, I’ll be team leader for this mission.” Her heart beat faster at that. Holy shit she was team leader. “T-These are my teammates Yamanaka Ino and Hyuuga Hinata.”

 

A nod was all she got in return. Right. The Hokage had said he wasn’t personable. Good thing that Sakura had learned quite a few things from interacting with Sasuke on a daily basis.

 

She reprehended herself for her stutter, Inner cursing up a storm on her head. Her voice yelling at Sakura to pull herself together, cutting down her insecurities to the quick. If she didn’t feel like a leader then she’d better act like one until it became true.

 

It was easy to let Inner’s confidence take over and Sakura led them around the village, calmly explaining the main monuments to the samurai. They met up with Temari outside the Hokage tower and Sakura was amused to see the older girl being cheerful and pretending they were friends.

 

By the time they got to the civilian district, she dived deep into all the things her dad had taught her about trade lines, touristic influence and the economy.

 

Tachibana was looking at her from the corner of his eyes now instead of keeping his eyes averted like he’d done the rest of the tour and Sakura fought to keep her satisfaction to herself. From time to time she caught one of the girls looking at her incredulously.

 

By the time they reached the center of the market district, Sakura had carefully devised a plan to accidentally cross paths with her dad. She couldn’t be obvious about it or it would look like she was trying too hard and Konoha was desperate. She had to keep doing what she had done so far which was to play in subterfuge, the few questions he had asked she took the utmost care in answering.

 

“Sacchan?” Someone called from behind them and she knew her plan worked. Her dad was a creature of habit and every morning at exactly ten, he would leave his business to the employees and cross the street to his favourite tea house.

 

“Otou-san!” Sakura turned around and smiled the most polite smile she could. He would know that something was off by it.

 

Her dad instantly looked around trying to get a feel of the situation. Sakura saw how he took in Ino and Hinata and the gear they were all wearing, the backpacks on their backs. His eyes fell on Tachibana behind her and she saw recognition flash on her dad’s grey eyes.

 

“Sadatoshi-sama, it’s been a while.” His voice was the same he used when Sakura was little, before her Academy days, and she went with her parents to all the conferences abroad. It was a voice that demanded respect. It was his heir voice.

 

To Sakura’s utter astonishment Tachibana—who her dad referred to by his first name and wasn’t that a surprise on its own—bowed his head slightly.

 

“Kizashi-san.” Sakura could feel his eyes on her. “I wasn’t aware your daughter was a ninja.”

 

Sakura had no idea if he was happy or not about it, his poker face was good , but her dad clearly did because the next thing he did was smile brightly.

 

“Yes, and I’m sure she’ll be one of the best!”

 

She had to fight hard to keep a frown off her face. Her dad had never acted like that about her ninja career. Her parents had always indulged her when she showed interest in something but they never outright encouraged her in becoming a ninja. She was almost certain they never expected her to graduate the Academy, let alone become a chunin.

 

She could tell by his reply that Tachibana valued shinobi. It was weird for a samurai to do so. From what she’d heard they either were indifferent towards ninja or thought they were inferior.

 

This was good. She could use that information in the future.

 

Sakura kept quiet and watched as her dad charmed the pants out of the surly Tachibana. She immediately wrinkled her nose at the image that brought to mind. Poor choice of words aside, she could see her dad subtly implying that Konoha would be a good investment for the samurai.

 

She could also see that Tachibana was almost sold.

 

She expected that his connection to the Hokage had worked in her dad’s favour. All she had to do now was make sure he kept his opinion favourable and this mission would be a success.

 

“I’ll be home soon, otou-san,” she bid her dad goodbye when their conversation came to an end and began leading the way out of the village.

 

“You said your bodyguard was waiting for you outside the gates, right Tachibana-sama?” Sakura asked conversationally, not really expecting him to say anything.

 

“Yes,” his reply was curt but it still made her turn to him in astonished silence, unable to hide her surprise. The slight upturn of the corner of his lips threw her in for a loop. It was like he was a different person.

 

She caught the girls eyes and they were both looking rather surprised by the turn this mission was taking. When they heard it was a C-rank escort mission they probably thought they would have to fight bandits, not find their way around politics.

 

Thankfully, the three of them had received the same type of training on politics that Sakura had. They knew to keep their mouths shut and smile prettily for the time being and to let their team leader handle it. And that would be her. The team leader.

 

Sakura’s breath caught in her throat, anxiety bubbling in her stomach and making her nauseous. She took a few deep breaths and calmed herself. It didn’t matter if she was ready to be a leader. She would do what needed to be done.

 

By the time she came back to herself they were already crossing outside the safety of the gates.

 

“What took you so long?” A bored voice called from their right.

 

A samurai that looked more man than boy got up from his slouched position at the base of a tree. His hair and eyes were the same shade as Tachibana’s but his ponytail was shorter and perched high on his head, his bangs framing his face like Sakura’s. He wore the same kind of garb as Tachibana did only his were completely black and he also held two wakizashi on either side of his hips.

 

So far, samurai were breaking all of the expectations she had of them.

 

“Stop your complaining, Shinsei.” Sakura thought that if his face wasn’t made of stone, Tachibana would be rolling his eyes. “This is Haruno Sakura. Her team will help you escort me back safely to the Land of Iron.” Sakura didn’t miss the emphasis he put on her clan name and the responding eyebrow the boy raised.

 

It was clear after an awkward pause that he wouldn’t acknowledge them. A flash of anger cursed through but she pushed it down and sent a warning look towards Ino to do the same. She knew she must be getting pissed at being kept out of the spotlight while Sakura got the attention.

 

“I’ll take point, Tachibana-sama,” she looked directly into his eyes. “You’ll be in the middle with your bodyguard to your right and Ino to your left. Hinata will take the rear. Temari will be with me.”

 

Thankfully, Tachibana didn’t take offense to her bossiness. The boy, on the other hand, smirked at her.

 

“Looks like kitten’s got claws.”

 

Sakura thought his voice was nice. Which was weird because she had only ever noticed someone’s voice like that when Sasuke-kun spoke but there she was. Thinking the arrogant samurai had a nice voice.

 

She frowned at him.

 

“If there’s an attack from the rear, Ino you’ll be backup and Temari will take your place on the left. Don’t break formation otherwise.” She gave the dark haired boy a pointed look. “It’s unlikely that anyone could get past Hinata, but I just want to cover all basis.”

 

She waited for the others to nod before continuing, a strange feeling rushing through her at having all of their attention.

 

“We’ll walk tonight until we reach Kawaboko. Tomorrow we’ll cross over into the Land of Rivers and stop at Kin Gai. The day after we’ll reach Suna and follow the border into the Land of Iron.” She cocked her head. “I assumed that you didn’t come with a full entourage because you wanted to keep a fast pace. Is that plan to your satisfaction, Tachibana-sama?”

 

“Aa.” He nodded.

 

Shinsei narrowed his eyes at the older samurai before focusing his gaze back on Sakura. The intensity behind it surprised her and made her pulse quicken.

 

“O-Okay, we’ll set out now.” Sakura cleared her throat and they moved into formation.

 

The trip to the first town was uneventful but Sakura had been wired the whole time. Nothing could go wrong in this mission. She had to succeed.

 

Shinsei was annoying. He was laidback and cocky and kept complaining loudly about how bored he was of the whole affair. He didn’t act at all like a bodyguard and Sakura was one innuendo away from punching him in the face.

 

It was amusing to watch Ino get redder and redder at each pass he made at Sakura and brushed off Ino’s advances. Sakura just hoped they got to their hotel before Ino exploded.

 

The first half of the trip was taken in awkward silence between the girls but after it became obvious that Tachibana wasn’t as strict as he looked—he let Shinsei talk his mouth out and Sakura had even caught the tiniest of smirks on his lips once—they began to engage.

 

Tachibana had insisted on the daimyō suite and despite Sakura’s protests, had payed for them all. All the rooms were connected to the great living room where a banquet was brought to them. The samurai didn’t stay long, though, and quickly retired to the master suite.

 

“Aniki is an old man he has to be in bed by ten otherwise he falls asleep on the table.” Shinsei joked.

 

“Aniki?!” Ino exclaimed. “You’re his brother?”

 

“Are,” He blinked at them “you didn’t know that?”

 

“But you’re young!” Sakura blurted and immediately regretted it as he turned his full attention to her, the same flirtatious flair to him he adopted throughout the journey.

 

No one had ever flirted with her before. It made her uncomfortable but at the same time it made her heart beat faster and her belly feel weird. She felt like she used to with Sasuke-kun, definitely not love—she wasn’t even sure she had ever really loved him—but excited .

 

“How old do you think I am, Kunoichi-chan?” He smirked at her and leaned his elbow on the table in a show of terrible manners.

 

“I, I mean—“ she stuttered before clearing her throat and scowling at him. “Definitely not old enough, by the way you’ve been acting.” She mumbled.

 

Hinata and Temari were talking quietly amongst themselves but Ino was looking at them intensely and Sakura could practically see the cogs turning in her head. Shinsei leaned further into her space and Sakura cursed the fact that she had sat down next to him.

 

She could feel the little bit of sake he had on his breath and his arm just brushed her covered ones enough for her to feel the heat coming from it.

 

“I can assure you I am old enough .” His voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “Are you, Kunoichi-chan?”

 

Sakura’s eyes were as big as saucers as she gaped at him. She knew what he was implying and it was like a bucket of ice water had been poured on the somewhat pleasant heat on her belly. She definitely wasn’t old enough for that.

 

“Would you look at the time!” Ino exclaimed loudly and laughed even louder. “Why don’t you just say how old you are and we can call it a night, Tachibana?”

 

Shinsei looked over at Ino speculatively for a moment before a frown marred his features. There was an expression on his face almost like bashfulness but a second later it was gone and Sakura was left wondering if it had been there at all.

 

“I’m nineteen.” He cleared his throat in the first display of awkwardness that showed he wasn’t as cocky as he liked people to believe. “It’s getting late, I guess. See you girls in the morning.”

 

He got up but before he could leave Sakura remembered her manners.

 

“Goodnight, Tachibana-sama.” She looked at him from under her lashes and watched bemusedly as he frowned even deeper than before and left without saying a word.

 

“What was that?” Sakura asked quietly to herself. Things had been going fine so far. Had she said something she shouldn’t?

 

“Let’s go to bed, Sakura-chan.” Ino took her hand and pulled her to her feet unceremoniously before dragging her towards one of the two bedrooms left. Sakura barely had time to say goodnight to the girls before the door closed behind them.

 

“Ino!” She exclaimed when the blonde pushed her down to sit at her futon.

 

“Finally we have some time alone to talk.” Ino looked intently at her. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, okay?”

 

“Okay?” Sakura looked confusedly at her.

 

“Look, from the beginning of this mission you’ve been acting real formal and I can see that you mean business. It’s why I kept my complainings to myself, you know, I don’t want to ruin this for you.” She took a deep breath and looked a bit unsure of herself. “Shinsei is Sadatoshi’s little brother and it was clear from their interaction that they value each other opinions. He’s into you, Sakura.”

 

“He’s so not--”

 

“No interruptions.” Ino covered Sakura’s mouth with her hand. “You took the same kunoichi class that I did, Sakura. You know what the best course of action is in this mission.”

 

She did.

 

She had been naive enough so far to hide even from herself the signs he was showing--and that she was strangely enough reciprocating--and she knew exactly what it meant. Kunoichi class had taught them flower arrangement and etiquette, sure, but it had gone much deeper than that.

 

How to read a target to find out what type of man he was, how to hold yourself accordingly, how to seduce, when to fight back against advances.

 

When to give in.

 

It was a chilling thought and Sakura remembered that she spent two nights without being able to fall asleep after that particular lesson. She had pushed those lessons to the back of her head since then, only remembering them when she had her first moon cycle, and needed Ino to remind her.

 

“I didn’t even have my first kiss, yet,” Sakura mumbled without realising she’d said it out loud.

 

Ino’s face contorted into the most heartbreaking expression before she went back to frowning at her. Her hands moved around her as she spoke.

 

“You don’t need to do anything about it, Sakura!” She grabbed her by her shoulders. “You really don’t, okay? The Hokage didn’t order you to so there’s absolutely no obligation whatsoever.”

 

“No,” Sakura shook her head, “there really isn’t.” She took a deep breath and looked Ino right in the eyes, her hands coming to grip her friend’s wrists. “But I still want this mission to succeed, so I’ll do it.”

 

“Sakura…”

 

“Ino,” Sakura said more firmly, gaining confidence. “I promised myself that I would do whatever it took. Sure, at the time I was thinking more along the lines of dying for my village but sometimes there are better ways to go about things, ne?”

 

Ino looked at her silently, admiration and sadness shining in her beautiful eyes before nodding.

 

“At least he doesn’t seem to be too big of a jerk.” She offered.

 

“No, he doesn’t.” Sakura smiled gently at the girl and tried to reassure her. “Now, help me make a strategy to go about this. You’re the one who knows more about this stuff anyway.”

 

The plan was simple, really. Shinsei seemed to like Sakura just fine the way she was, now Sakura only had to pay more attention to his cues and give some signs of her own that she was open to whatever he wanted. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to do much acting but just the thought of the… physical stuff was making her nauseous.

 

She and Ino had decided that it wouldn’t make any sense for her to try and seduce him. She wouldn’t be able to fake having the experience and he didn’t seem like he would appreciate it either. All Sakura had to do was pretend she wanted him but wasn’t sure how to go about it or what to do exactly.

 

Which wasn’t far from the truth.

 

Sakura was exhausted by the time they agreed that they needed to make some alone time for Shinsei and her so when she fell back against the pillows to rest her eyes for a bit it was no surprise at all that she couldn’t open them again.

 

The last thing she remembered was Ino laying down besides her, her warm weight and soft breaths just what she needed to fall asleep.

 

-

Notes:

Sooo, lots of things I want to discuss hahaha! First of all, I hope I wasn't the only one who noticed that it was weird for Shikamaru to get that promotion and everyone else to fail. There are a lot of reasons that he should have gotten that, sure, and I completely stood by it the first time I watched Naruto, but, for me, after watching it for the second time, years later and seeing him pretend to be asleep while everyone else was being attacked really shocked me. I mean, yeah if I was an inexperienced genin I wouldn't want to join the fight either but Ino and Choji (his supposed best friends) were literally right there and he didn't even wake them up or took their body out of harm zone. OKAY that was a big rant on Shikamaru and he didn't even appear in this chapter. Anyway, my point is that more people should have been promoted if Shikamaru, with such a character flaw, was. We may not have been explicitly told this but Konoha *was* preparing for war and even though Hiruzen's reign of 'let's let kids be kids' (only NOT but I don't think I have enough space here to go into *that* shitstorm) was still technically in place, he had a lot of opposition and, most importantly, a lot of opposition in high places. Also, you guys will notice that throughout this story, Tsunade may be a bit different than from cannon but what I'm doing is just taking what she's described like (someone who gets shit done) and actually portraying her like that because I'm not a misogynist japanese old man. Prepare for a Tsunade that takes shit from no one at all times.
RIGHT, onto the next important bit here. Sakura's age and what we just saw it's gonna happen. Look, I could go on and on about child soldiers and how they have to do what's necessary and going in guns blazing isn't always the best course of action but I'm only going to say this: Sakura is a ninja.
She's a ninja who lives in a ninja village in a world that is based heavily on japanese feudal era. You cannot convince me that it isn't traditional for marriages to happen early or that people don't develop earlier too. And, okay, I might agree that the world has some modern elements to it and civilians most likely are based on current (or 00's) japanese people. Right, okay. Let's not forget the ninja part, though. A whole clan had to be massacred for people to let the minimum age of graduation be *twelve*. Genin aren't treated like children when they're asked to participate in dangerous missions and they shouldn't be treated like children by Konoha's people (this will be addressed further on in the story) or by us writers/readers. This isn't real life, y'all.
That being said, rest assured that even though this story will have a lot of smut later on, nothing explicit will be written while Sakura is still young.

ALRIGHT. LET'S PRETEND I DIDN'T WRITE 2K WORDS OF RANT OKAY?OKAY.

Sorry guys, but for those who read all the way to the end, drop a review and let's talk about how we hate how Kishimoto doesn't follow through with his characterisation of women?

Chapter 3: The Mission

Notes:

Warnings for PTSD and a bit of gore.

Sakura woke up to complete darkness. For a second she panicked with the irrational fear that she had gone blind before Ino’s soft snores registered on the fogginess of her mind. She didn’t understand at first why she had woken up but something didn’t feel right.

 

Flashes of the last C-rank she took went through her mind so fast she was left breathless in the aftermath. The smell of blood and death and the sea all around her, countless men screaming in agony, Naruto’s desperate scream and Sasuke’s limp body falling to the ground.

 

She woke up and the sounds of chirping birds were still echoing in her head.

 

Sakura took a deep, shaky breath and tried to dispel some of the tension on her muscles. The mission to Wave was a nightmare from the start and she couldn’t control the real nightmares that came after. She could, however, control the effect it would have in her life, specially when she was in a mission. She had no time to deal with stupid nightmares, she had to make sure this mission was a success.

 

With a tired sigh she got up, thankful she had slept on her day clothes, and carefully eased out of the window. She would do a perimeter check just to get her thoughts settled.

 

The early morning breeze was warm on her skin and the moon was already close to the horizon. Being in Land of Fire territory was settling for some reason, like they were safe, like they couldn’t be attacked. It was wrong to think that, she knew. They were plenty far from Konoha and traveling with a rich business investor who happened to be a samurai.

 

It was the perfect place to stage a situation so that Iron broke relations with Fire and that was enough cause for alarm. Konoha was really in a shortage of ninja if they had sent her, a green chunin, two genin and a foreign chunin who happened to be from the village that had betrayed Konoha and Sakura didn’t particularly trust to this escort mission.

 

Sakura suddenly saw movement from the rooftop of the one-story hotel.

 

With a kunai drawn and a defensive stance, she whirled around to face the possible threat.

 

“That was some quick response time, Kunoichi-chan.”

 

Sakura forced her muscles to relax at the familiar voice. It was just Shinsei, smoking a pipe and leaning back on one hand.

 

“You should be asleep.” Sakura didn’t holster her kunai but jumped up to the rooftop, circling chakra to her feet to make the transition smooth.

 

“I think between the two of us, it’s you who needs a bedtime, kid .” Shinsei’s voice took a teasing tone but Sakura could sense something beneath it that sounded a lot like resentment. Like calling her a kid was to serve more as a reminder for him than to actually insult her.

Suddenly last night made a lot more sense. At first she had thought that he only had a flirty personality and that’s why he kept coming onto her, but he didn’t treat the other girls like that. That meant he was investing in her.

 

The thought sent a heady feeling rushing through her veins. How weird it was that receiving that kind of attention made her feel this good. Sakura was an only child but her parents had always been more focused on their business than on her, and later on she had never had someone to focus on her like that.

 

Ino had filled a big hole in her life for a while, calling her a beautiful flower, making sure she had someone to sit with, but that ended when Sasuke came along.

 

And now there she was. With this boy, this man , really, completely focused on her. It was equal parts terrifying and exciting.

 

But last night he had backed off. Seemed confused and the tiniest bit frustrated when she hadn’t returned his advances and when the question of age came up he had completely shut off. And now the kid comment.

 

He thought she was too young which, sure, she certainly was from her point of view but he couldn’t be thinking that if she wanted to go on about her plan. She needed to get his attention back, for the good of the mission, for the good of the village.

 

(There was still a small part of her, though, only whispered quietly by Inner, that wanted his attention on her again. Wanted him to look at her like he did last night, eyes heavy with promise of delightful things she had learned during kunoichi class. Only that part of her quickly got shut down because there had also been other things she had learned during kunoichi class about how those things might not be so delightful depending on the target.)

 

“I’m not a kid, you know.” Sakura carefully sat down next to him, her shoulder just brushing his covered bicep. “I’m young, okay, but in Konoha one stops being considered a minor when they graduate the Academy.”

 

She expected him to go right back to flirting with her or to at least make a joke out of it but Shinsei only nodded his head slowly and took a puff from his pipe. After a few moments of silence where Sakura became progressively more agitated, he extended his hand towards her.

 

“Want some?”

 

Sakura raised her eyebrows, looking from the offered pipe to his expressionless face before shrugging and accepting it. She took it between her fingers like she saw him doing but didn’t go much further than that.

 

“I don’t really know how…” she trailed off with an embarrassed blush and was immediately gratified with his first smile of the night.

 

“Put it between your lips and suck the smoke in, then inhale through your mouth,” his hand went around her wrist and brought the stick to just touch her lips.

 

Sakura did what he said and promptly choked on the smoke, her eyes watering and her lungs burning. Shinsei took the pipe back and took a practice drag of his own, all the while smirking at her.

 

“That tasted like shit.” Sakura blurted and cleared her throat.

 

Shinsei threw his head back and laughed and Sakura was struck by how good he looked. The sound of his laugh was enough to bring that pleasant warmth back.

 

“What are you doing awake, anyway?” He handed the pipe back to Sakura and she fought a grimace and suffered through another drag, this time taking it a bit easier.

 

“I couldn’t sleep so I decided to do a perimeter check.” Sakura shrugged. She technically knew she had to turn this conversation on him, to give him some sign that she was open for more, anything really, but it was hard.

 

She’d never had to do this before and was beginning to think kunoichi class was pretty useless with all the lack of practice involved. She needed experience and to be comfortable to take on this role and she was neither. But no one could ever say Sakura wasn’t determined.

 

So she put on the mask that Inner provided and faked all the confidence she didn’t have.

 

“You know, I think you should kiss me.” Sakura figured she would just make a fool out of herself if she actually tried to do it. Wouldn’t know where to put her hands or what to do with her mouth. No, it was best if she was upfront about it right now. She knew what type of person he was, had observed carefully just like she had Tachibana. She knew he would appreciate the joking tone she took.

 

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow at her but she could see his smirk growing. “And why is that, Kunoichi-chan?”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes at the nickname and forced herself to keep going.

 

“I want to learn how to do it properly,” she fought to keep eye contact but didn’t show her struggle. “You look like you could teach me how.” She cocked her head to the side and let a tiny smile come forwards. “You look eager enough, too.”

 

Shinsei blinked at her and there was a pause long enough to make Sakura question herself—because, good god, she never had to seduce someone before and Sasuke was the living proof she sucked at it—before Shinsei huffed a surprised laugh.

 

“Who knew you could be this assertive, Kunoichi-chan.” His dark blue eyes crinkled in the corner when he leaned his supporting arm behind her, letting their bodies get closer. “I can’t say no to such a decisive kunoichi now, can I?”

 

His breath fanned on her face for a moment and then his lips where on hers. They were warm and soft but Sakura couldn’t help but think overthink everything about herself. Were her lips as soft as his? Did she have morning breath?

 

With an annoyed grunt at herself she pushed back against him. This was a mission and Shinsei was nothing but an ends to a mean. There was no reason to feel self-conscious.

 

Shinsei cupped her cheek with warm calloused hands and put her jaw into a different angle, deepening the kiss with a swipe of his tongue on her bottom lip.

 

It was weird. Very weird, especially when she opened her mouth at his prompting and his tongue slid against hers. It wasn’t bad weird or good weird it was just… weird.

 

But she learned a few things.

 

She learned how to nibble and suck. She learned how he particularly liked when her fingers unconsciously curled on the fabric covering his stomach. She learned that he made a nice sounding groan when she sucked on his tongue.

 

But most of all—when they parted and she could see his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were darker than ever while she was barely out of breath—Sakura learned that she liked this. Having the ability to make other people’s skin redden with excitement and to make their hearts beats faster was exhilarating .

 

“The sun is almost up.” Sakura smiled at him. “We should go downstairs to get ready.”

 

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, clearly disappointed that they weren’t going further. “I’ll walk you to your room.”

 

“There’s no need.” Sakura got up and stretched, taking a moment to hear the sounds of the first birds waking up. “We leave at dawn.”

 

She jumped out the roof as silently as she could and snuck back inside. Perhaps she had been a bit curt with him towards the end but she wasn’t overly concerned. She and Ino had discussed that the best course of action with a guy like Shinsei was to show interest but still play hard to get. He was the type who liked the thrill of the chase and now Sakura had him eating out of her palm.

 

Or so she hoped.

 

-

 

The trip over the border into Rivers was tense. Sakura had been on high alert since they set off for some reason and she was acutely aware that they weren’t into Land of Fire territory anymore. Nothing happened, but instead of it making her relax, her nerves got even more agitated.

 

When they settled that night to eat, Sakura explained her contingency plan to the others.

 

“If a large group intercepts us or if the enemy is too strong for us we are all to separate.” Sakura cleared her throat. “Team Sakura, all of us will immediately henge into Tachibana-sama. The three of you will leave with him heading east and I’ll take Shinsei and head west. The meeting point will be whatever city we’re headed for next.”

 

“Are you sure, Sakura?” Ino looked concernedly at her.

 

“If we get attacked, the client is our priority.” Sakura said firmly, flashes of Tazuna crossing her mind. “You girls are strong enough to protect Tachibana-sama and if it’s just me and Shinsei I can evade the enemy and hide us with genjutsu.”

 

It was a simple enough plan. The enemy will clearly see that they were four nin and when the smokescreen clears and they see exactly four Tachibana sticking together and heading in one direction, the logical conclusion is that the real Tachibana was with his bodyguard.

 

Sakura could use the genjutsu she’d been practicing. She hadn’t tried it with another person but she was fairly certain she could do it so at least Shinsei wouldn’t get noticed.

 

“It’s a clever plan.” Shinsei said when his brother nodded. “But do you think we’re going to be attacked?”

 

“No, not at all.” Sakura smiled reassuringly at them both. “This is just precautions. Ninja can be an extremely paranoid bunch, don’t take offense.”

 

The corner of his lips lifted slightly and they went back to eating in silence before Temari broke the tension with some carefully constructed compliment towards Tachibana.

 

Sakura felt a sudden rush of gratitude towards her teammates. She was so glad her first time as captain was with these clever, clever girls.

 

All her training with her dad had pointed out the advantages a woman had on politics and how she could use a sweet smile and kind words to her advantage. Then later on in kunoichi class she had learned how to charm with her feminine curves and how a soft voice and long hair would help her.

 

Being in an all male team for so long had twisted her notions of what strong meant. For a while she tried to stay thin and not to train so much her muscles would show because maybe Sasuke-kun would notice her. If she suppressed the part of herself that wanted to speak out and to fight and to be ‘not girly’ she could be feminine and desirable.

 

Using the few advantages she had over the boys because she had been surrounded by power-houses and geniuses and trying to work up to their level seemed laughable. Even Naruto, the deadlast of their class, had been leagues ahead of her. It was easier to give in and excel at being a kunoichi, something they couldn’t be better than her. It was natural.

 

Only she had forgotten what it meant to be a kunoichi. It wasn’t about having long hair, knowing flower arrangements and cooking for the team. It was this.

 

It was navigating politics with an innocent smile and clever speech. It was looking at a man and knowing exactly how to bring him to his knees. It was being good at all that stuff that girls were “supposed to” be good and still look good doing it.

 

Most of all, Sakura was beginning to realise that being a kunoichi didn’t meant she couldn’t know how to fight. And how to do it well .

 

Ino was the best of their class. Hinata could be meek sometimes but she was amazing while fighting. Tenten was formidable with her weapons, much better than Lee with them. Temari was probably the scariest girl she ever seen fighting.

 

And Sakura, well, she had a lot of catching up to do.

 

Instead of feeling discouraged, she took it on like a challenge. She wouldn’t give up, she wouldn’t rest until she could say she was strong enough to stand side by side with the boys

 

The next day they set off at dawn once again. Sakura had began to settle in her new position as leader. She was still alert at all times but the nervous energy that she had felt before was all but gone. A different kind of energy took its place. Every time her eyes caught Shinsei’s she felt exhilarated knowing that he had been looking at her before and, maybe, even appreciating what he saw.

 

It was weird, the feeling she got. Not pleasant exactly but something she couldn’t make sense of. She never felt like this before, not even with Sasuke-kun. Maybe because Sasuke hadn’t ever looked at her like that. It was all very grown up, something she’d only ever read about it her mum’s trashy romance novels and fantasised in her bed before sleep. It should scare her but for some reason it didn’t.

 

Maybe it was because she wasn’t going into this blind, maybe it was because she knew first hand that there were worst things to be afraid off. A cute boy wanting to be with her didn’t come close to watching Zabuza kill over twenty men with just a kunai on his mouth.

 

Sakura motioned for her team to stop. She thought she’d seen something like the sun reflecting on steel, but it was gone now.

 

“Haruno-san?” Tachibana asked her a bit out of breath. They had set a fast pace of running through the civilian roads instead of taking to the trees because the samurai wouldn’t be able to follow them there but it looked like all the running was getting to the older man.

 

“Do you need a break, Tachibana-sama?” She asked with a smile instead of voicing her worries. “We can stop at the next village for lunch.”

 

He only nodded at her but Sakura still sent him another smile before starting at a slower pace than before. It wouldn’t do to make their client feel like they were flaunting their skills in front of him.

 

Deciding the flash could have been the sun reflecting on anything , really, Sakura shook the tension from her shoulders and settled for counting the weapons on her pouch to calm herself. Even if they were attacked, they would be prepared.

 

They had lunch in what looked like the only restaurant in a tiny village by the river. It was a peaceful place and Sakura let them take a few calming moments to appreciate the breeze. Shinsei was sitting next to her, his leg pressing on hers from time to time.

 

She sent him a smile. Not a coy one, she wouldn’t be able to pull it off, but a sweet, private one. The same one she had seen her mum give her dad or Kurenai-sensei give Asuma-sensei. His eyes darkened and the cocky smirk he sent her back was enough proof she had done something right.

 

The crossing into Land of Wind was like a weight lifted off her shoulders. This was Temari’s land, the probabilities of them being attacked was about the same as in the Land of Fire. Even less so because a convoy from Konoha being attacked in their territory was the last thing Suna needed right now.

 

They stopped for the night at an Inn by the road that Sakura thought was clean and fancy enough to house Tachibana. They were a bit behind schedule but she wasn’t overly worried about it, specially if Tachibana hadn’t shown any signs of complain either.

 

The next morning was just like every other. They got up, grabbed their things and some breakfast and were gone by the time the sun was rising.

 

But something felt odd.

 

It was the feeling she had been brushing off and overlooking ever since they left that first village in the Land of Fire but intensified. And it wasn’t just a hunch, either.

 

It was the trees and the way they were swishing with the wind. The river they were following and the sounds it made rushing against stone. The way the road felt beneath her feet.

 

It was sudden, the realisation that she was under a genjutsu. It took everything she had not to react, to keep running at the same pace she had been before. If someone had put them under a genjutsu it was better if they didn’t know yet that she had noticed it.

 

Whoever it was wasn’t against letting them get closer to the Land of Iron. They had been allowed to keep the same pace and had already passed two exits that they didn’t take so the possibility of them being there for Tachibana and Shinsei was low.

 

This was good news. If they were attacked, Sakura would order them to run away. They could probably make it across the border in about four hours, full speed.

 

It would have been ideal if she could use the genjutsu she was under to track whoever was casting it but she didn’t trust her abilities enough to do that. She could risk exposure if she did one tiny thing wrong and she didn’t have any plan to fall back to.

 

She was stuck, she realised. She didn’t know why someone had put them under a genjutsu, how powerful they were or even how many. If they had managed to evade them—managed to evade the Byakugan— then they must be powerful. That thought sparked something inside her.

 

An enemy that had managed to fool the Byakugan was an enemy that knew how it worked. The only possible way they could have fooled Hinata was if they knew Sakura had ordered her to keep a watch on their backs. Hinata must have been worried about making sure no one would get them from behind that she didn’t focus on what was ahead of her.

 

This also meant that the enemy had to keep ahead and at an appropriate distance.

 

Now she had to figure out why they were letting them continue on their route and weren’t attacking. It didn’t make any sense to put them under genjutsu if they weren’t doing anything.

 

Unless they had been heading straight to their base. Unless they only needed to dull their senses long enough for them to miss the signs that they were about to come close to their headquarters.

 

With a plan beginning to form and no time to think any further ahead, Sakura acted.

 

She started sending her chakra to Ino and Hinata in short bursts to signal D.A.N.G.E.R. though it was no use to try and do the same for Temari because she wouldn’t know Konoha’s signals. The moment she felt the girls breaking the genjutsu, she quickly sent a wave of chakra to the other’s systems as well as her own.

 

“Temari, full attack twelve o’clock!” Sakura whispered harshly so the enemy couldn’t hear her. She was impressed when Temari didn’t even hesitate before following her orders.

 

The giant fan on her back was suddenly striking forwards, wind so sharp it cut tree branches down like they were paper. Screams came from up ahead and Sakura could identify at least four different voices.

 

“Temari, you’re with me.” Sakura didn’t spare her a glance and turned to the other girls. “You both stay here, protecting our client is your priority. If we don’t come back, you each take one of them on your backs and run all the way to Suna. Don’t stop until you get there.”

 

“But, Sakura!” Ino exclaimed, kunai in hand. “You can’t go like that! What if they—“

 

“Ino!” Sakura cut her off and stared her down. She didn’t have time to argue with her, she needed to move now and attack while they still had the upper hand. Ino didn’t say anything else, but her eyes were still wide and shining. Sakura spared her a tiny smile to reassure her before dropping her bag and taking of her weights as fast as she could.

 

The amount of damage they did to the floor when she dropped them was nowhere near as big as Lee’s but it still made her team raise their eyebrows. She took off at top speed before realising Temari was way behind her.

 

“Can you do that one more time?” She asked the girl after slowing down a bit.

 

“You don’t need to ask twice!” A wicked grin took over her face before her chakra flared as she used her signature jutsu again.

 

They were close enough to see the forest up ahead and Sakura was quick to get two kunai and attach exploding tags on them. When Temari’s jutsu died down, she threw the kunai into the trunks of two trees.

 

“When I activate them, use a weaker wind jutsu!”

 

Sakura didn’t wait for Temari to confirm before she sent her chakra to the tags. The explosion would have been enough to rock her off her feet if she hadn’t stuck them to the floor with chakra and soon the flames grew in intensity, fueled and directed by Temari’s chakra toward their enemy.

 

When the flames began to die, Sakura ran full speed towards the cover of a big tree and peeked around it to assess their enemy.

 

There were four men on the ground, three unmoving and one squirming and crying loudly. Another three men were there, one was leaning against a three, half of his body completely burned and chest still. The other was on all fours coughing up a storm and the last… the last was impaled by a tree branch.

 

It had gone straight through his stomach and his arms were badly burned. The worst thing was he was still breathing, still conscious .

 

Shaking the nausea off, Sakura turned towards Temari with a stony face. They were close enough that they could be heard but Sakura didn’t care about that at the moment.

 

“Do you want to explain to me why they have Suna hitai-ate?”

 

-

Notes:

Yo, I'm back! I don't know how updates are going to work because I just moved across the world and I'm looking for an apartment, looking for a job while studying and I left my computer back in Brazil so... I'm currently using the computer in my college class to post this because what is college even for if not to write fics, armiright? But anyway, I promise to try and get the next chapter next week!! I hope you liked this one even though I already see how the interaction with Shinsei can be troublesome... Also! If there's anyone who doesn't think that Sakura would have major PTSD from Wave and even the Chunin Exams, then you stupid. JK.

Hit me up with a review and let me know what you think so far! Are you guys really prepared for Sakura's first mission as a team leader, Team 7 style?

Love you all xx

Chapter 4: Kill on Sight

Notes:

Warnings for gore and slight dissociation. This chapter came surprisingly easy for me, hope you guys enjoy it.

Temari looked between her and the carnage behind her with wide eyes before they fell on Sakura’s drawn kunai. She wasn’t exactly pointing it at Temari but it was enough to send a message. If Suna was really attacking her team, Sakura would have no choice but to fight Temari and as much as the mere thought of it sent shiver down her spine and a fresh wave of panic through her system, she stood sure.

 

“Calm down!” The blonde girl raised her hands. “This attack didn’t come from the Kazekage. I don’t know what’s going on but if they are Suna nin then you can be sure they hold the status of missing nin now.”

 

Sakura continued looking at her, analysing every aspect of the older girl. She saw how her hands were shaking minutely and that despite the serious expression on her face, she was sweating. Personally, if she was given the choice, she wasn’t sure she would trust Suna.

 

Konoha had let them betray them once and Sakura wasn’t sure they had changed enough to merit the trust they put on them. But she knew that right now Konoha’s support was of extreme importance to Suna, she couldn’t see why they would betray her.

 

Sakura decided that until she got the full scope of the situation, she would treat Temari cautiously but wouldn’t attack her. She nodded to the blonde.

 

“These are your nin and your country.” Sakura pointed behind them with her kunai. “what is Suna’s protocol for missing nin?”

 

She knew, of course. Had read about it during the Academy, but she still wanted Temari’s confirmation.

 

“Kill on sight.”

 

Without another word to the girl, she turned and entered the clearing they had created with their combined forces. She went to the squirming man first, saw that he had an exposed fracture on his thigh, saw that he was bleeding severely from a head wound and how the front of his shirt was all but melted into his torso.

 

Sakura stood next to him, grip tightening around the handle of her kunai.

 

I have to do this, she thought, steeling herself for the task ahead of her. If she stopped thinking about the shinobi at her feet as a man, maybe her hands would stop shaking. She saw from the corner of her eye that Temari was approaching the impaled ninja.

 

The same hesitation that plagued Sakura stopped the girl before she took a kunai from her holster but Sakura didn’t want to watch her any further.

 

She closed her eyes, imagining where the missing nin’s head was and pulled her arm back. When she opened her eyes again, she barely saw a man on the floor. Inner had put a mask over her eyes and all her brain registered was target.

 

Sakura flung her arm forwards so fast she doubted someone could have seen it. As the sick sounds of the kunai piercing flesh and bone rung inside her head, the same noise was echoed from Temari’s side of the clearing.

 

Sakura felt her breakfast burning its way back her throat but quickly swallowed it down. Her hands were shaking so she squeezed them into fists until her nails broke the skin of her palms. Inner whispered harshly on the back of her mind for her to keep it together squishing all her thoughts of this is wrong, they were defenceless, I’m a killer, I’m a monster, this is wrong.

 

The thing she had to do next was way worse.

 

“How far away is your hideout?” Sakura scared herself with how serious her voice was. The hard edge it had taken wasn’t anything she had ever thought she’d be able to achieve.

 

The man who had been coughing up his lungs was already on his feet, turning to run away but Sakura was faster. With the speed she had gained training with Lee this past month she ran towards him and kicked him in the back with enough force to crack the tree he hit.

 

“I asked you a question!” She snarled at him. Inner provided her with the mental image of Zabuza and how he had projected anger and danger and how it had paralysed her with fear. A matching image of Orochimaru and his crazy malign chakra and how he had grinned at them back at the forest.

 

All the times she had encountered an enemy so scary her muscles refused to move came back to the forefront of her mind but the way she revisited those memories now was different. Inner had memorised the way they stood, the way their chakra moved around them, how they talked. It was easy to copy when she had a clear image of what she needed.

 

When Sakura made eye contact with the man, she saw how he froze. His skin lost all its colour and sweat broke all over his body. The sudden bout of satisfaction she felt at accomplishing something like that made her sick.

 

The man only whimpered when she took some wire from her pouch and tied his hands together. The pain her tight knot brought him was enough to break him out of his stupor and he immediately locked eyes with Temari, who was holstering a bloody kunai a couple of steps back.

 

“You’re a traitor to Suna!” He spat at her. “Kissing Konoha’s ass while your own village suffers. I hope the council decides on burning you and that monster brother of yours.”

 

“Suna’s in shambles because the council decided to stand with a madman and betray the only ally worth having.” Temari’s face contorted into a disgusted grimace. “It’s because of people like you that we lost all those shinobi.”

 

Sakura grabbed the dirty blond hair of the man before them and brought him to his knees roughly before yanking his head back to look at her. She took another kunai from her holster and pressed it to his neck until it drew blood.

 

“I have five questions.” She whispered harshly. “You answer all of them without any fuss and we’ll kill you as fast and painless as possible. If you choose to waste our time, I’ll make sure your last moments alive are the worst you’ve ever had.”

 

She didn’t know how she could speak so callously about torturing a man to death. All she knew was that Inner kept pushing thoughts to the forefront of her mind about how this man had almost pit Sakura against Temari, about how the mission he had jeopardised could have cost greatly to Konoha, about how this wasn’t a man at that moment, he was just enemy.

 

Inner gave her a mask to put on and hide behind. A mask made of Zabuza and Orochimaru and of all the things that gave her nightmares at night. A mask she gladly took.

 

“Who was the genjutsu user?” Sakura asked.

 

“Fuck you.” The man grinned at her with bloodied teeth when her kunai slid deeper inside his neck.

 

She didn’t nick an artery but the blood was trickling steadily down his throat now. With a harsh exhale Sakura holstered her weapon and looked around her as she thought back to the basic torture class they had at the Academy. Her eyes caught on the splinters from the tree behind the man and she quickly crouched to get one of them.

 

When she released the man, he didn’t waste any time before trying to escape but Temari kicked him in his private parts so fast he couldn’t do much more than double over.

 

“You shouldn’t make this any harder on yourself.” Sakura took his bound hands on hers and motioned for Temari to hold him down. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who was the genjutsu user?”

 

“You’re young and Konoha’s bitch,” he scoffed at her, “you’re the nice village. You won’t torture me.”

 

“You’re right, we’re the nice village.” Sakura grabbed his left pinkie tightly. All feeling had left her and she could barely hear anything through the sound of blood rushing through her ears. “But we’re not in Konoha anymore.”

 

It was messy.

 

At first Sakura didn’t really know how to go about it. The first few tries she pierced the tip of his finger with the splinter, then she changed the angle too much and it ended up stuck on the underside of his nail. But after a while she got the hang of it.

 

He ended up answering all her questions and whenever he paused, Sakura reminded him by twisting the splinter embedded in his pinkie finger. Every time nausea came to her and she started shaking, Inner would tell her to push through it, she would remind her that she had promised herself she would do whatever it took for this mission to succeed.

 

Temari was the one to deliver the killing blow when they were done.

 

She had managed to get out of him everything she needed. The genjutsu user, the one she figured had to be a jounin, had been the one she killed. Their hideout was about three kilometres through the forest and they had about four men waiting there. None of them were above chunin level and they were expecting them to arrive after sunset that day.

 

The reason for the attack was obvious enough for Sakura but he still confirmed it. They wanted to stage a scenario in which it would be hard to determine who had betrayed who, so that Suna and Konoha broke their treaty. They had deserted the village to follow Temari to Konoha and waited outside until she showed up. The jounin of their group had once fought alongside a Hyuuga and knew that, after her order to Hinata, it would be best to stay ahead of them.

 

“It was necessary.” Temari’s voice broke her out of her stupor and she realised she’d been staring at her hands for a while, crouched next to the dead man. “You did right by your country, Sakura.”

 

Sakura sighed, her muscles shaking but an odd emptiness filling her. She got up and looked the girl in the eyes.

 

“It still doesn’t make it right.”

 

Temari continued looking at her, respect, camaraderie and a bit of fear reflecting on her face. They didn’t speak for a while, only looked at each other in shared innocence lost. Sakura bizarrely wanted to ask if these had been the first man she’d had to kill.

 

“There’s an outpost about a kilometre down the road, I need to stop there and contact Suna with the location of their bodies and their hiding place.”

 

Sakura nodded at her and turned around, leading the way back to the rest of their team. They didn’t speak any further but Temari’s presence was somewhat nice to have when the adrenaline rush started to fade.

 

“Sakura!” Ino yelled and jogged up to them before hugging her tightly. “I was so scared.”

 

Sakura wanted to melt into her best friend’s arms, to relax her taut muscles and to let go of the tension in her body but she knew she couldn’t do that. If she let go of her masks, she would break down and fall apart and she couldn’t allow that right now. So she pushed Ino away as gently as she could and turned to her client.

 

“I apologize for the trouble, Tachibana-sama.” She bowed. “We might need to postpone our arrival to Tetsu.”

 

“Are we in danger?” He asked quietly and Shinsei tightened his hold on his wakizashi.

 

“Not at the moment. The attack has nothing to do with you specifically, but the missing nin have a hideout into the woods with others who are waiting for us to arrive no later than sundown. I’m confident they will attack again if they realise the entourage they sent to take us to them never arrive.” Sakura explained calmly.

 

“W-What are we going to do?” Ino asked her quietly, her eyes focused on a spot beneath Sakura’s jaw.

 

“We’ll go to the furthest village we can get until noon and you and Hinata will guard Tachibana-sama and Shinsei until Temari and I get back.” Sakura looked at Ino but she was still fixated on the spot on her neck so she looked at Tachibana instead.

 

“That’s fine.”

 

With a perfunctory nod, Sakura turned around and continued down the road, the others falling into formation behind her.

 

“S-Sakura-chan,” Hinata stuttered from her place on the rear. “Ano, are you sure you don’t want me coming with you to the hideout?”

 

“There are only four men there,” Temari answered for her, “and we have the element of surprise.”

 

“You two need to stay and protect our client, Hinata.” Sakura’s voice came out harsher than she expected so she turned around and smiled at the girl. “Don’t worry, Hina-chan, Temari and I make a great team.”

 

They walked in silence after that and reached the Suna outpost in no time. While Temari went inside to send the council a letter, the others stayed by the shade of some trees. Tachibana was sitting on a rickety bench making it look like a throne while Hinata was with her Byakugan activated and eyes closed. Ino was surreptitiously staring at her while twirling her hands together agitatedly.

 

Sakura was ignoring her looks and leaning against the wall of the small building when Shinsei approached her. He leaned his shoulder besides her, blocking her from view of the others and reached inside his kimono for a piece of cloth.

 

“You have blood on you.” He gently grabbed her jaw and wet the cloth with his water bottle before stroking it across her heated skin. “That’s why Blondie keeps staring at you like you’re going to collapse any second.”

 

“I’m fine.” Her voice came out hoarse and Sakura cringed from the tears she could hear behind it. His gentle gestures and soft voice were making it hard for her to keep her masks on and she had to do something before it was too late so she grabbed his wrist firmly and met his eyes. “I said I’m fine.”

 

“Okay,” he shrugged and pocketed his handkerchief but didn’t step back from her. Instead, he lit a cigarette and took a few drags before offering it to her. It wasn’t enough to make her feel like steel again but it did help settling the nervous energy she had cursing through her veins.

 

The rest of the way was less of a blur for her, she could see things more objectively now instead of pushing everything away with a frantic mantra of don’tfeeldon’tfeel. This was a mission, she did what she had to do, there was still a long way to go before she could break down.

 

They left her team with the Tachibana in the fanciest place they could find, an onsen by the road with a big daimyo suite. Sakura and Temari immediately took to the trees at top speed with Sakura with her weights back on, making her roughly the same speed as her partner.

 

They stopped a few kilometres after the spot where they had killed those missing nin and had a short break to eat and drink some water before carrying on. The sun was just beginning to set when they saw the abandoned building the rest of the ninja were squatting at.

 

It was a two-story building with half its roof gone and most of the windows broken. There was a single man on guard outside, lazily using a kunai to get the dirt beneath his fingernails as he leaned against the wall. They waited a few minutes until they could hear three sets of voices from inside and confirm that the man was alone.

 

Sakura whispered her plan to Temari and put a genjutsu over herself before walking very slowly to the side of the house. From directly in front of Sakura, Temari rustled a bush and Sakura waited with a kunai drawn for the man to go investigate.

 

He could ignore it or call out and attract his comrades’ attention. Sakura supposed there were a few variables to this situation but she went with the most likely and created failsafe plans to go with the others.

 

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the Suna missing nin passed right by her. She quickly jumped up to get a hold of the hair on the back of his head and used her height to her favour when gravity brought her back down and exposed his neck to the kunai she slid across it.

 

Sakura’s muscles strained as she carefully lowered him to the ground and she took a moment to feel nauseous from the feeling of warm blood gushing against her hand before she pushed it away.

 

Still hidden beneath her genjutsu, she moved back to where Temari was and took aim with three kunai. They went straight through one of the broken windows and Sakura immediately activated the exploding tags on them.

 

“Now!” She yelled the command to Temari who quickly unleashed her wind jutsu on the flames, fuelling them until they burned impossibly hot.

 

Maybe it wasn’t the flashiest and most chakra draining demonstration of power but Sakura had to be real. She was an inexperienced chunin whose fighting style was lacking in several different ways. She didn’t know exactly who she would be dealing with, only that they were in bigger numbers than her.

 

The least chakra she spent, the better. The best thing she could do was end them all with one move and pick off whoever escaped the explosion while they were still disoriented.

 

There were two screams from inside, one male and one female, before a window broke and a woman threw herself from it. Before she even hit the ground, Temari threw a shuriken at her throat and she was dead.

 

The two girls waited in silence, their skin heating with the warmth from the fire as the sounds of the man inside increased before dying down.

 

Without even looking at each other, they both turned around and jumped to the trees. It was barely five minutes before Sakura was heading back towards the ground. She leaned her hands on her knees and promptly threw up everything she had into the bushes. After her stomach was completely empty, she still dry heaved for a while before a cool hand was pressing a wet cloth to her arm.

 

Sakura used the rag to dry the sweat on her forehead and neck before using it to clean her mouth and discarding it along the bushes.

 

“I’m sorry.” She said hoarsely, still not looking at the older girl.

 

“Don’t be.” Temari said simply. After a while of watching Sakura take small sips of her canteen, she added. “You’re a good ninja.”

 

Sakura scoffed, tears she knew she wouldn’t spill springing to her eyes.

 

“I’m weak.” Her whole body was trembling, even her voice sounded brittle. “Killing is what a ninja is supposed to do and I can’t manage it without vomiting.”

 

“These are your first kills, you’re taking it remarkably well, to be honest.” Temari was grinning ruefully at her when Sakura finally looked at her. “Besides, what a ninja is supposed to do is protect and that’s what you did today, Sakura.”

 

Sakura stared at the girl unblinkingly, wondering where she had learned that because it sounded more like something a Konoha ninja would say, not from someone whose country’s policy was kill on sight for missing nin.

 

Her question must have showed on her face because there was a pink tint to the blonde’s cheeks as she scratched the back of her head.

 

“Well, at least that’s what that idiot Shikamaru told me.” She cleared her throat awkwardly.

 

“Huh,” Sakura said intelligently.

 

“We are having a joined Chunin Exam for this semester and the two of us are in charge of making it happen so we end up spending a lot of time together.” Temari’s eyes were wide as if she couldn’t believe she was running her mouth like that.

 

“I didn’t ask.” Sakura smiled slyly at her and was rewarded with a blush from the girl.

 

“Shut up.” She scowled at her and punched her in the shoulder when Sakura went past her.

 

With a slight chuckle and a lighter mood, Sakura took to the trees again with Temari just behind her. They reached the onsen when the moon was already high up in the sky. With a whispered goodnight, they headed to their private rooms to change and catch a few hours of sleep before dawn.

 

When Sakura was striping, however, she noticed that her right hand was still covered in blood and suddenly she felt too dirty for bed. With a barely suppressed shudder, she hastily took off all her clothes and grabbed a towel before jumping over the walls of the onsen to get to the girl’s section.

 

She didn’t waste any time in jumping into the scalding water and scrubbing herself vigorously. Her skin was pink and tender but she didn’t care because she had to get the blood out. It was a few seconds later that she realised she’d been panting and that the dripping she’d been hearing was the sound of her tears hitting the pool.

 

“Shit.” She couldn’t even keep her promise to herself to never cry again. She supposed it had been stupid of her to think she could change so drastically just because she wanted to.

 

Sakura took a few unsteady breaths to calm herself before getting out and wrapping a towel around herself.

 

“There you are.”

 

Sakura gasped and turned to the entrance she had completely forgone in her haste, her fingers twitching for a holster that wasn’t there.

 

“Shinsei,” she breathed. “You scared me.”

 

“I heard you girls coming in but your light was still on.” He shrugged. “I got worried when I didn’t find you in your room.” There was a sheepish undertone to his voice that strangely appealed to Sakura and thinking of it and the warm feeling it brought her, she remembered the other part of her mission.

 

It was, perhaps, a mix of different things that made Sakura do what she did next.

 

It may have been the conflicting emotions she had all day, the horrible things she had to do or even the unexpected tension that had sneaked under her skin when she was with him. She didn’t know why but the next thing she knew Sakura was in his arms, her hands bringing his head down almost like she had done to that man outside the cabin but this time it was to bring his lips to hers in a heated kiss.

 

That first time she didn’t exactly know what to do and this wasn’t much better but Sakura knew she had to do something about Shinsei before the mission was officially over.

 

His lips seared hers and Sakura relished the intensity in which his tongue slid against hers. His large hands encircled her waist completely and brought her closer to him while her own desperately wandered from his neck to shoulder to his chest.

 

With a sudden movement, Shinsei pushed Sakura against the wooden wall hard enough to make her head smart and for her to come back to her senses a bit. But then his lips were moving down and he–oh, god–he was biting and sucking the sensitive skin of her neck making her gasp from how unexpected it was.

 

Shinsei took her reaction to mean he could go farther, though, so he glided his hands from her waist to her hips to her bottom to grab behind her thighs and push her up, trapped against the wall and his body.

 

It was all too much.

 

She could feel every inch of him, including a somewhat unexpected hardness that was pressed against her core and she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her towel and oh god, oh god, she could feel him and it was feeling nice until it wasn’t because it was too much, she didn’t want this, she didn’t want–

 

“Sorry, Kunoichi-chan.” Shinsei froze before carefully set her down and taking a step back. “I pushed for more than I should have.”

 

Sakura only stared at him for a moment, panting for breath and eyes wide, before her brain caught up to her.

 

“N-No!” She reached for him, her hands grasping his kimono tightly. “I didn’t mean to freeze like that, Shinsei, I’m sorry!” She couldn’t fail this. She had to push forward no matter what.

 

“Sakura.” It was the first time he had called her by her name and he did it so seriously she stopped her frantic babbling and looked at him. “Don’t worry, okay? I took things too fast but I’m sure we’ll have more time to get to know each other.”

 

“What?” Sakura whispered.

 

“Heh,” Shinsei smirked at her. “Just something my aniki said. I figured he wants to keep business with Konoha strong so I’m sure we’ll have other opportunities.

 

“Oh.” Sakura’s eyes widened comically.

 

“Goodnight, Kunoichi-chan.” He kissed her on the cheek. “See you tomorrow.”

 

And then he was gone, leaving Sakura feeling oddly empty. She had gotten her confirmation that the implicit mission had been a success but she had still failed her personal mission. She was supposed to seduce him but she just couldn’t go through with it.

 

With heavy steps she made her way past her room into Ino’s, not at all surprised to see the blonde still up. Without caring about clothes, she slid into bed beside her best friend and cuddled up close to her.

 

“Did you do it?” Ino’s voice was sleepy.

 

Sakura didn’t know what part of the night Ino was asking confirmation about but all she could answer was a quiet, “No,” before she fell asleep.

 

-

Notes:

Hey, lovelies! What did you think of the dark turn Sakura is taking? What about Shinsei? Love him, hate him, don't really care just wish him to be gone already? It's ridiculous how much I get attached to my OC's, tbh, I quite like him and Tachibana... Anyways! I'm feeling inspired lately sooo I'll post the next chapter as soon as we hit the 100 reviews mark!! Hope you all have a lovely day :)

Chapter 5: Mission Complete Team Seven Style

Notes:

Sooo, I may have been a bit of an overachiever with that 100 reviews thing haha you guys totally didn't give me what I wanted but that's okay! I loved all the reviews I did get and you guys are amazing with all your love for this story <3 Here's another chapter and don't worry, the next one will be here soon.

Sakura woke up with a headache. It pulsed behind her sinus angrily and when she tried to open her eyes, all she could do was groan miserably.

“Your eyes are swollen, Sakura-chan.” Ino laughed quietly when she only groaned louder. “I’ll get your clothes and some ice for that.”

Sakura only managed to push herself up into a seating position on the futon before Ino was back. She gave her a glass full of iced water and Sakura gulped it all down before trying to speak.

“What time is it?” She croaked.

“Just before dawn,” Ino sat down next to her and pointed to her chest. “Your boob is showing.”

“Ino!” Sakura quickly set the glass down and used both hands to put her towel back in place.

“It’s not like I’ve never seen you naked, Sakura-chan,” Ino scoffed and waved her hand dismissively. “It is the first time I slept next to someone who was naked, though. Never figured it would have been someone with pink hair, to be honest.”

Sakura stared wide eyed at her for a moment before an incredulous laugh escaped her.

“You’re ridiculous.” Sakura shook her head at the blonde. She reached for the discarded glass and used the ice inside it to press soothing cold into her eyes.

“What happened with Tachibana?” Ino didn’t waste any time. Sakura could hear in her voice that this wasn’t the only thing she had been meaning to ask but she knew Ino wouldn’t mention what happened at the hideout. She knew Sakura had killed those men and that relieving the fact wouldn’t help her in any way.

Sakura sighed.

“I froze.”

“So… the mission?” Ino asked carefully, her hands twisting in her lap.

“A success.” Sakura dropped the ice back on the glass and got up to start getting dressed.

“Sakura,” Ino huffed. “Stop being so evasive.”

Sakura was quickly putting on her warmer clothes, they were about to enter Tetsu territory and the extra layers would be necessary soon. She waited until she was almost done before turning back to her best friend.

“He said that his brother was thinking of keeping relations with Konoha strong and that we would have more time to get to know each other.” Sakura ran her hands through her hair and sat down with her back to Ino. “He’s a decent guy. Can you make a braid for me? My hair is a mess from sleeping with it wet.”

“Just because he’s not pushy doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole, Sakura!” Ino started stroking her fingers through her hair a bit more aggressively than merited. “Doesn’t make him any less of a paedophile.”

“Paedophilia would imply I’m underage, Ino-chan.” Sakura said gently.

“You are still too young for these kinds of things!” Ino insisted harshly and Sakura could hear the tears in her voice.

“But not too young to kill?”

The silence that ensued was heavy. Ino’s hands were shaking as they finished weaving her hair into a perfect braid and the two of them sat still for a while before the blonde’s quiet sniffles made Sakura speak up.

“I’m sorry.” She said without turning around. Ino sniffled once more before getting up abruptly.

“No.” She shook her head and looked head on at Sakura with a fake smile on her face. “You’re right, Sakura-chan. We’re kunoichi of the Leaf. We do whatever is needed of us, right?”

They didn’t do much more speaking while they got their things in order. The whole group gathered for a hearty breakfast at the suite’s common room and they headed out just as the sun had finished rising over the tree tops.

The trip into Iron was done in quiet chatter. The weather got progressively worse and by the time they could see the Sanro, the three wolves mountains, they had been carting through snow for about two hours. The sun was almost completely hidden by heavy clouds now but Sakura’s internal clock told her it would be a few hours until noon.

“This is where we depart, Sakura-san.” Tachibana stopped their entourage when the road they were on forked into three paths.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to accompany you to your estate, Tachibana-sama?” Sakura asked the man with a frown on her face. It didn’t feel right leaving them in the middle of the road.

“We are already in my land. No harm will come to me.” Tachibana looked her over clinically then his eyes moved to his brother before resting on her once again. “Call me Sadatoshi, our families have done business for generations, there is no need for such formalities.”

Sakura knew her family wasn’t the only reason he was granting her permission to call him by his first name. Sakura’s connection as a Haruno made an impact, sure, but things had changed since the beginning of the mission. There was respect on his eyes when he looked at her now and maybe a bit of cunning when he looked back at his brother.

Sakura was sure that if her dad allowed it, Sadatoshi would try to arrange a marriage between Shinsei and her.

“I hope we were of service, Sadatoshi-sama.” Sakura bowed at him, the girls following suit and echoing the gesture.

“Konoha will always be welcomed in my lands as a sign of gratitude, Sakura-san.” Sadatoshi nodded at them and left without another word to them. “Hurry up, Shinsei.”

The younger samurai smiled charmingly at the girls and saluted them jokingly.

“Ja ne, Kunoichi-chan.” He winked at her.

Temari snorted as they stayed watching the backs of their traditional garb. She slung her arm across Sakura’s shoulder and together the four of them went back the way they came.

“How did that go?” Sakura could see from the glint of her eyes that Temari was fully aware of the side mission she had undertook. It was no use playing dumb so she merely grinned back, face full of faked female smugness.

“Mission complete.”

Temari laughed out loud and Ino joined with a snort and a shake of her head while Hinata stared wide eyed at them all.

“At least we can go back to acting like ninja now.”

And with that they all took to the trees, happily channelling chakra into their feet to help them move faster. It had been constricting to travel like the samurai and Sakura was glad she could feel the wind rushing towards her once again. Her headache lessened as the exercise pumped adrenaline through her veins and Sakura felt weightless.

When noon came around, Temari stopped them to say goodbye.

“We can go with you to Suna, if you want.” Sakura offered.

“No way.” Temari shook her head and turned around. “Go home and get your pay, Sakura. You deserve it.” She waved her hand. “See you girls in a couple of weeks back in Konoha.”

Sakura had almost forgotten that Temari was going to be a constant in Konoha. She was suddenly ridiculously glad for the Chunin Exams and the opportunity it gave her to keep in contact with the girl.

“Wait up!” Sakura walked up to her as she scribbled something on a piece of paper she had laying around her in backpack. “This is my address. When you go back maybe you could visit? Or send me a letter…”

Sakura trailed off awkwardly, her cheeks burning at how stupid she felt. Temari was just a teammate she had for one mission, she was older and foreign, she wouldn’t want anything to do with Sakura. But still, a part of her wanted the girl’s friendship. She had made the horrible tasks Sakura had to do for the first time more bearable and it meant something to her.

Temari looked surprised at Sakura’s request but she quickly took the piece of paper and sent her a fierce smile.

“See you soon!”

“See ya!” Ino waved excitedly.

“Have a safe trip, T-Temari-san!” Hinata blushed at her stutter but there was still a tiny smile on her face.

Sakura turned back to her teammates and smiled greatly, a big weight seemed to be off her shoulders. The girls smiled excitedly at her, also happy to be done with the mission.

“If we keep a fast pace and camp out in the woods we can be in Konoha for breakfast.” Sakura raised her eyebrows. “What do you say?”

“It’s been a nice vacation but I’m ready for my kaa-san’s food!” Ino put her hand on her hip and laughed a bit.

“I can keep up, Sakura-chan!” Hinata nodded determinedly at her before giving a shy smile.

“Yosh!” Sakura turned around and tightened her hitai-ate. “Let’s head out then!”

It was a nice feeling to be going back home. Sakura was still a bit shaken with the things that had happened and she was sure plenty of nightmares were to come but it didn’t really matter because the mission was a success. She did it. She actually managed to accomplish her first mission as a chunin with only minor setbacks.

Well, minor to Team Seven standards, anyway.

They stopped just once for a quick lunch and to change out of their winter clothes before they were moving once again through the tall tree branches. The sun was almost completely hidden by the horizon and, by Sakura’s estimative, they could even make it to Konoha in that same night if they didn’t mind running in the dark for about an hour.

Maybe she had counted her blessings too soon. Maybe she had angered the universe in anyway or maybe the headache that had been making its comeback all throughout the day had made her miss the signs of an ambush.

It didn’t really matter because one second they were chatting animatedly about whether they should stop for the night or keep going and the next second Ino was screaming and dropping to the forest ground.

With her best friend’s blood splattered all over her face and the sounds of kunai rushing through the wind, all Sakura could do what stare wide eyed at all the red around her.

-

Notes:

... sorry?

Chapter 6: An Unexpected Arrival

“Sakura-chan!”

Hinata’s scream broke Sakura out of her frozen state instantly as the dark-haired girl sent kunai after kunai to stop the trajectory of the ones heading towards her. Sakura threw several shuriken at the attackers up ahead.  

“Hinata! Cover me, I need to check on Ino!” Sakura managed to say despite choking on her words. There was so much blood and the distance from the tree branch and the floor was high but Sakura refused to believe Ino was dead.

The two girls jumped down to the clearing below, Hinata scrambling to fend off attacks and Sakura immediately dropping to her knees beside Ino. At first she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, there was so much blood, but soon her meagre first aid class during the Academy started kicking in.

She had to see if she was breathing. With shaking hands, Sakura felt for a pulse on her friend’s neck while bending her head to see her chest. Good, the pulse was strong and she was breathing. Shallowly, which was worrying, but breathing all the same. Sakura felt relief flood her system like morphine, making her dizzy for a moment before she returned to her assessment. Just because she had a pulse didn’t mean Ino was safe.

Next, she had to find the source of the blood.

She was interrupted by Hinata’s scream.

“Hinata!” Sakura turned around to see the girl clutching her cheek, blood dripping from between her fingers.

“I’m fine!” Sakura continued looking only long enough to see for herself that she could keep fighting before she went back to Ino.

There was a gaping hole on her upper arm and it was bleeding heavily. Sakura didn’t waste any time in stripping to her mesh shirt and bindings and cutting strips of her qipao dress—you look like a princess in it, Sacchan, her dad had once said—with her kunai. She first tied a few of them around the wound itself before creating a tourniquet above it. She didn’t have any more time to take care of anything else but took careful stock of the bump on her best friend’s head and of the odd angle of the left side of her torso.

Ino probably broke some ribs and hit her head on the fall but there was absolutely nothing Sakura could do about it while the enemy was still attacking them.

“Hinata! Switch with me!” Sakura got up and blocked another flow of shuriken while Hinata took her place. She quickly threw an exploding tag attached to a kunai to where the barrage had come from. “I’ll distract them. You take Ino straight to Konoha, okay? She’s bleeding a lot, the wound is not coagulating at all, I don’t know how much longer she has!”

Sakura took the moments the enemy were dealing with the explosion to drop all of her weights.

“I-I can’t leave you, Sakura-chan!” Hinata was crying but Sakura was relieved to see she had gotten Ino on her back.

“You can and you will. That’s an order.” Sakura was surprised by how calm her voice was but she knew deep in her bones that she would protect those girls until her dying breath. It didn’t matter that her legs were shaking from how afraid she was, she had to get them to Konoha. “Don’t worry, Hina-chan, I’ll catch up to you soon!”

Sakura didn’t look at Hinata any longer, instead she turned back to her enemy. She had already counted four different directions the attacks had come from. Hinata took to the trees again, going faster than Sakura thought she was able to and it was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

“Don’t let the Hyuuga heiress escape, you idi--” the man was dead before he could finish his sentence, Sakura’s kunai, hidden by a simple genjutsu, on his throat.

She could finally see all of them, the three remaining ninjas were on the same tree only a branch between each of them. They were two men who were gangly enough for Sakura to think she could take them on and a woman who had a tantou on her back and looked like she had more experience than the both of them combined. They were all wearing Kusa hitai-ate with the symbol scratched in the middle.

“Give up, little girl, the rest of our team is coming soon.” The woman smiled mockingly at her. “Even if you manage to hold us back, others will come.”

“Not that you will last long,” the man closest to her stupidly drew attention to himself right before throwing a lightning jutsu at her. Sakura didn’t have time to think on her next actions. Letting instinct take over, she quickly used the kawarimi no jutsu—the one she had always been so good at back at the academy—to change place with the branch beside him and used her momentum to kick him in the throat, one foot attached to the tree with chakra and the other striking him swiftly.

The amount of force she put behind the blow was enough to crush his windpipe and he fell to the forest floor in a heap.

“Tei!” The other man yelled after him, anguish clear in his voice.

Sakura was again at the place Inner had designed for her in which she could do terrible things. It was surprisingly easy to put the mask on. While the man was distracted mourning his comrade, she quickly jumped to his branch and attacked him with her kunai, her grip surer after her lessons with Tenten.

The man wasn’t quick enough to dodge completely but he managed to escape the brunt of it, only taking a shallow cut to the arm. He grabbed her suddenly by her still extended arm and tried to flung her off the tree but she held on to him with all her strength and took him with her. At the last second, she pushed off him and slowed her fall by jumping from tree to tree until she reached the ground just before him.

His fall had been less controlled than hers so Sakura took the few seconds he was righting himself to close the distance between them and strike with a kunai. She had been aiming for his heart but a sudden kick to her back sent her down and she ended up cutting his torso wide open.

The blood gushed from his wound and coated her exposed skin but Sakura didn’t let herself be shocked by how warm it was. The woman was behind her and she had precious seconds before she attacked again.

Sakura moved fast to her feet but at the last second, when she was about to leap away, the woman hit her with her short sword. The damage was slighter than it could have been because Sakura was already moving away but her tanto still sank into the skin of her shoulder painfully, tearing a scream from her throat when she fell to the floor and it ripped away.

“Tell me, girl,” the woman kicked her on the back again and Sakura felt one of her left ribs crack, “was killing three of our men of any use to you?”

Sakura gasped in pain as she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet and flung around to look straight at the woman. Her red painted lips were stretched into an ugly, vicious smile, her dark blonde hair loose around her shoulders and speckled with Sakura’s blood.

Before Sakura could say anything, the sound of ninja moving through the trees drew their attention. For a fleeting second Sakura let herself hope that it was someone from Konoha coming to rescue her, but reality sunk in leaving only despair in its wake.

The woman had said that they’d been waiting for the rest of their team and sure enough, ten more ninjas entered the clearing. They were all wearing the same black cape that her assailants were and had different types of swords strapped to their bodies.

“What happened here, Riruka?” A tall woman asked, her voice husky and dangerous. She was clearly the leader.

“We were waiting for a Leaf team to come through so we could use them as hostages against those ANBU bastards.” Riruka spit on the ground but didn’t point her tanto away from Sakura. “We even got lucky enough that the Hyuuga heiress happened to be passing by but this bitch here slowed us down.”

Sakura didn’t know what had possibly possessed her to let go of her careful hold of her mouth. All she knew was that there was no way she was getting out of this alive and she wanted to let go of her anger before it happened, then Inner was taking over so quickly Sakura almost felt whiplashed.

“You’re never going to reach them before they get to Konoha, you fucking bastards. I hope ANBU catches up to you and tear you apart limb from limb.”

Before Sakura had even finished her sentence, Riruka was backhanding her so hard she fell to the side, her forehead catching on a sharp rock that cut open a straight line through her left eyebrow. Sakura was gearing up to continue her tirade, to let her last moments on this earth be of defiance and boldness but the next thing she knew, a thousand birds were chirping.

It took her a moment to realise what she was hearing and what it meant, but as soon as the dots connected in her head, Sakura jumped to her feet and took a kunai from her holster. She came onto Riruka full strength and the woman was just distracted enough for her to manage to disarm her.

Sakura quickly dodged the woman’s lightning filled kick and aimed a kunai at her. It was blocked rather easily but Sakura had anticipated that and had sent a kunai with an exploding tag hidden on its shadow by a genjutsu.

The tag went off when Riruka saw through her genjutsu and paired the kunai and Sakura raised her arms against the force of the explosion as she leaped away. The force of it threw her further back but she didn’t feel it burning her.

The sounds of fighting were echoing all around her but Sakura didn’t have time to look around because Riruka, with arms heavily burned and her clothes in tatters, screamed in outrage and charged at her. She stood her ground, ready to defend herself with her kunai but a masked figure stepped between them and with a swipe of its sword, Riruka’s head fell to the forest floor.

-

Kakashi was tired.

His squad had been ordered to assassinate a band of missing nin from Grass that had been causing trouble at the border about a month ago and what was supposed to be a two-week mission was taking twice as long because the ninja kept disappearing on them.

They apparently had a sensor type with them and always seemed to know when they were being followed.  

Kakashi had ordered his squad to keep its distance about a week ago but today he’d noticed that their scent had split into two. With how close they were to Konoha, he was about ready to finish this mission once and for all.

They had been gaining in on the larger fraction when Kakashi felt the scent of the two groups mix.

Signing for his squad to proceed with extreme caution and to hang back a few metres, he followed their trail without making a sound. By the time he could see the clearing in the distance, he knew something was wrong.

He didn’t waste any time before attacking half of them with his Chidori, barely looking around other than to confirm his next target. His hand went through five chests, breaking through tissue and bone easily, before an explosion caught his attention.

His squad had arrived. Genma cut the head off a blonde woman while Keiichi took three ninjas down with his clan jutsu and Yuugao battled the other two with her katana. The numbers weren’t exactly matching up and a single figure stood behind Genma, kunai raised and battle ready.

The girl was almost bare from the waist up and absolutely covered in blood.

Kakashi was moving forwards, blade drawn to interrogate the suspicious character his teammate had so obviously protected before he noticed the Konoha hitai-ate. Then she spoke.

“Kakashi-sense—Kakashi-senpai.”

Kakashi immediately stopped in his tracks, both eyes widening in realisation. The girl was Sakura. Blood covered, battle ready Sakura. The genin who had been placed on his disaster of a team, the genin who was now in the middle of his mission. His ANBU mission.

“Identify yourself, kid.” Genma pointed to three bodies he had assumed had been his team’s doing before Kakashi could say anything. “Did you kill those ninjas?”

Sakura straightened her narrow shoulders, determination and urgency on her sharp features.

“Haruno Sakura, chunin, registration number 012601.” She said hurriedly, her words almost blurring together. “My team was attacked on the way back from Iron. Do you have a medic-nin in your squad?”

“The captain is the only one who can divulge this type of info…” Genma trailed off for Kakashi to take over but he didn’t need to because he was already reaching towards the girl.

“Are you hurt?” Kakashi asked harshly, his eyes roving over her figure and noticing the wound on her shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter, Hatake-san.” She slapped his hand away and he noticed she was shaking. “Ino is badly injured. I sent Hinata ahead with her but I—I’m not sure she’ll make it to Ko-Konoha.”

“Kitsune knows basic medical jutsu.” Kakashi was barely done speaking before Sakura’s head turned towards Keiichi.

“Then we have to hurry and catch up with them, I think the kunai that hit Ino might have been poisoned.”

Sakura, the same Sakura he had always secretly thought would never go any higher than genin, leaped into a tree faster than he ever thought her capable of. She was moving very quickly ahead of them as Kakashi turned back to his team.

“Taichou?” Yuugao questioned uncertainly, her cat mask tilting to the side in question.

“This is an emergency. Tanuki, Neko, stay behind to collect the bodies. Kitsune, full speed until we reach the girls.” Without another word, he went after Sakura. It was jarring to realise that he actually had to put some effort to catch up with her. Her speed wasn’t exactly on ANBU standards but it was still high enough to be noticeable.

“Byakugan!” Keiichi called from his left just as they were a branch behind Sakura. “I see them! About two kilometres ahead of us, we’ll probably reach them in two minutes if we go full speed.”

“Sakura,” Kakashi shunshined to her side. “Climb on my back, we need to move faster.”

Kakashi saw the displeasure on her face but didn’t expect her to jump on his back without complaint. He tightened his core muscles to keep his balance and continued on their track, letting Keiichi take point.

The two minutes it took to reach the girls were enough for Kakashi to lose track of his thoughts. He had never expected his mission to end with Sakura turning up with three dead bodies and a promotion on her shoulders. The type of seriousness he saw on her, determination mixed with the frightening weight of responsibility, wasn’t something he was prepared for either.

Kakashi jumped next to the Hyuuga girl and almost lost his balance again when Sakura leaped off his back to help her support the blonde girl.

“Sakura-chan, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Kurenai’s student was crying, blood mixing with her tears down her cheeks as she turned towards them. Her eyes widened when she saw Kakashi and Keiichi. “What’s going on?”

“ANBU-san is going to heal Ino, Hinata.” Sakura had completely taken Ino’s weight on her and was lying against the trunk of the tree. She looked expectantly at Keiichi, her eyes burning like she was daring him to do anything but.

“I’m not an iryo-nin, Haruno.” Keiichi was already concentrating green chakra on his right hand and bringing it to the girl’s arm. “I can only close the wound superficially until we get to Konoha. My expertise only goes that far and if she really has been poisoned, she’s going to need more help than I can give.”

But Kakashi knew it was enough. Ino was pale but he could see her chest rising and now that they had arrived, they could make it to Konoha in half an hour or less.

“Is she stable?” He asked Keiichi, seeing how the man had tensed upon looking at the blonde.

“We can’t jostle her much on the way back, Taichou.” Keiichi turned to look at Kakashi. “She definitely has a few broken ribs and the risk of them piercing a lung is high at this point.”

Kakashi nodded at him.

“I’ll take her as soon as you’re done. You’ll accompany the girls at their own pace.”

Keiichi carefully set Ino in his arms and Kakashi was about to shunshin away when he was stopped by a hand on his uniform.

“Hatake-san,” Sakura’s eyes were impossibly wide and her voice was tiny but strong. “Please be careful.”

He should be insulted but he wasn’t. He could see the desperation for everything to be alright on her face. It was the same expression she had given him when Naruto and Sasuke had almost killed her at the hospital’s roof. It was the same expression she had given him when they were dealing with Zabuza in Wave. It was the expression of a student asking for reassurance from their sensei and it was surprisingly easy for Kakashi to fall back to that role—the same one he had resisted so much from taking on.

“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan.” He cocked his head a bit to the side and smiled at her even though she wouldn’t be able to see. “Everything is going to be okay.”

The lie somehow felt bitter on his tongue as he sped through the forest. He had said that same thing to her before and things had turned out as far from okay as possible. But even though she had been trying to distance herself from him, calling him Kakashi-senpai and then Hatake-san, he knew she had needed reassurance.

He knew because he had been in her shoes one too many times with a teammate dying on the mission he was leading. He knew exactly how she was feeling, how her muscles were shaking so much she had to clench them or how the only thing keeping her steady was the duty she had to the village. So he pushed himself to his limit, running as fast as he could without jostling the girl in his arms.

Kakashi had been unable to prevent his student from having her first kill so early in her career but he knew without a doubt that he would do everything in his power so that she didn’t have to lose her best friend like he did his.

-

Notes:

You guys, I'm so sorry for taking so long, I feel so bad :( I really tried to put this up earlier but with everything happening IRL, I just couldn't get into the mindset to sit down and edit this chapter. I noticed some inconsistencies in the earlier chapters, mainly about how long it would take to get to Sand and back and fixing those are on my to do list, but it kinda put me off knowing I put a chapter up that had so many plotholes... However, I did manage to write six chapters more (kufku, I'm shameless) and I'm so excited to share with you guys what's to come xD

Anyways! I hope the appearance of our favourite boi will make you guys forgive me for taking so long haha

 

I have so many metas and so much to say about this story but I feel kinda stupid doing that in A/N's, so if you guys wanna chat more, hit me up on tumblr (s-scorpiusmlfy), 'kay?

You all are so fucking amazing with how much you're interacting with this fic, really. It makes me so fucking happy seing you guys tell me your thoughts and even though I didn't get around to answering all the comments, know that I read every one of them and that they all contribute to making me want to write. Thank you x

Chapter 7: Sakura Saku

They made it to the hospital. That fact didn’t exactly comfort Kakashi because Hinata had passed out as soon as he saw Keiichi and Sakura crossing the emergency doors. Now both girls were in surgery with Tsunade and Shizune and Kakashi was left to throw worried glances at Sakura who was staring at the white walls of the corridor outside the operating room.

 

She was clearly in shock. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that, had himself been in her shoes more than once before and knew exactly what the blank look and pale face meant.

 

“Kitsune,” he called out to Keiichi who was pacing up and down the hall. “Get a nurse over here to treat Sakura’s injury.”

 

“Taichou, Hyuuga-sama is—”

 

“In surgery,” Kakashi interrupted him. “And it may take a while. Sakura was stabbed and is in shock, she needs someone to tend to her.”

 

“I’m not in shock.” Sakura’s voice was so small he almost missed it but then her eyes finally met his underneath the porcelain mask and he could see the way they were glazed over. “I’m fine.”

 

Keiichi stopped his pacing to look at the girl and Kakashi could see in the way he paused that he had just realised how much Sakura was in need of medical attention. He turned around without a word and hurried away.

 

Kakashi rummaged around his pouch until he found some gauze he could put over her wound. The moment his gloved hands touched her, Sakura’s head moved so she could look at her shoulder.

 

“Oh,” she whispered.

 

“You’re going to be okay, Sakura-chan.” He didn’t know what else to say. Reassuring her like he had done so many times before sounded like a good idea at first but then she was turning narrowed eyes at him and he was suddenly feeling the same way he did when he fought a particularly strong enemy which was just ridiculous.

 

“Shut up!” She slapped the hand he had covering her wound away. “You said everything would be okay, sensei, and it wasn’t! Things are as far from okay as possible!” Her cheeks were flushed and there were tears in her eyes and Kakashi felt like someone had sucker punched him. “Sasuke-kun deserted, Naruto is gone and Ino…” She broke off into a sob.

 

Kakashi was at a loss. He didn’t know what to do or to say to comfort her. He had gone through what she did but Sakura and him were very different people. Isolating himself and diving head first into his shinobi duties was what he did. He didn’t know how to comfort girls like Sakura.

 

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to say.

 

“I don’t need you to be sorry, Kakashi-san,” Sakura was shaking when she locked eyes with him. “I don’t need you to lie to me and say everything will be okay when I know it won’t. I just need you to go, leave me alone.” She took a deep breath and turned her face away from him. “We both know you’re great at that.”

 

She was right.

 

He knew she was right. He also knew that this really wasn’t all about him. She had lost her team in one go and now the teammates she was captain of and therefore responsible for, were in the brink of death. It was a lot for a teenage girl and he wouldn’t hold the outburst against her.

 

The thing was, he really had no business being there, trying and failing horribly at consoling her. He was no longer part of Team Seven—there was no more Team Seven—and Haruno Sakura wasn’t his student anymore. He had recommended her for Tsunade to take on as an apprentice but he was a jaded, broken man who could offer her nothing more than a fake smile and a pat on the shoulder.

 

It was with one last glance at her that he turned around to leave. Keiichi and a nameless nurse were behind him, clearly waiting for him to blow up at her or worse.

 

“Make sure she’s okay,” he said to neither or both of them and without another look at the pink-haired girl behind him, he left, leaving only smoke in his wake.

 

-

 

Sakura stayed the whole night sitting outside the operating room. There were a lot of nurses coming and going but she paid them no mind, only lifting her head when Hyuuga Hiashi and then Inoichi came.

 

Ino’s mum, Neji and Hanabi were all there but she didn’t speak to any of them. Didn’t sit in comfort with them or even so much as looked at them, just stayed on the cold floor, trying not to shake so much.

 

She was still in just her bindings and mesh shirt and the nurse had healed her stab wound but she was still mostly covered in blood. Keiichi had left when Hinata’s dad had arrived with just an awkward hand to her uninjured shoulder.

 

After hours of waiting, the doors opened and Tsunade came out of the room.

 

“They are both fine.” It seemed like the room gave a collective gasp of relief. “Hinata can probably go home the day after tomorrow but I want to keep Ino here for observation for a couple of weeks. The poison in their system was a simple but effective one. Luckily we had the antidote here.” The Hokage’s eyes caught hers and Sakura saw how they widened before a frown appeared on her face. “What are you still doing here? Go home, Haruno. Get a change of clothes and come debrief me. I still need to know what the hell happened, I want a written report.”

 

Sakura felt like someone was constricting her throat. She couldn’t say anything to her Hokage, only nod obediently and turn around but when she was about to leave her eyes finally roved the girls’ families. She saw how they looked so exhausted but also how relief showed in their shinny eyes. Even Hinata’s dad showed some emotion on his face.

 

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, bowing to them all. “I was team captain, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed we were safe until we actually crossed the gates. We were not even a couple of hours away but still, I-I should’ve—“ She swallowed down a sob, her fists clenching by her side.

 

“Sakura-chan.” Inoichi stepped forward, his hand landing warm on her shoulder. “Ino-chan and Hinata-chan are both fine. Don’t beat yourself up too bad.”

 

“Inoichi-ojisan…” Sakura looked at him with tears in her eyes, her voice shaking from the effort of keeping it all in.

 

“Now,” he smiled at her, the exact same smile that Ino used to give her when they were children, “listen to your Hokage and go home, Sakura-chan. You need to get cleaned up and to give your report, okay?”

 

Sakura nodded at him and left, still mostly keeping her eyes averted from everyone else.

 

She took to the roofs as soon as she was outside, going full speed and not bothering to look up from her feet. She was shaking so bad by the time she got home, she almost couldn’t open her window. She thought it was probably best her parents didn’t see her in that state so she headed straight to her bathroom.

 

Sakura didn’t bother getting out of her clothes, just lost her pouches and stepped right into the scalding water of her shower. It was probably too hot for her but she could barely feel the burn of it on her skin.

 

Ino had almost died.

 

She was barely breathing by the time Kakashi took her in his arms and Hinata couldn’t keep herself up and it was all her fault. If she hadn’t been too busy talking to them, she would have noticed the signs on the trees that a large group had gone by. She should have paid more attention, she should have been faster, she should have been stronger.

 

The tears going down her cheeks mixed with the water from the showerhead and Sakura swallowed down her sobs.

 

It was no use crying about it. All she could do now was better. She had to be faster, she had to be stronger and if training until she collapsed was what it took, then she would do it.

 

She got out of the shower and started putting her uniform on.

 

Standard pants, standard long-sleeved blouse and her flak jacket. Her red dress was ruined and she knew, objectively, that it had always been too attention grabbing. Maybe ninja like Naruto could get away with it because he had enough raw power to protect himself but she certainly couldn’t.

 

She put her hair into the same style of braid Ino had done the day before for her. Her weaving fingers weren’t doing a job as tidy as Ino’s expert ones had done, but it would do.

 

Sakura had got it all wrong when she cut her hair during the Chunin Exams. The problem wasn’t that she kept her hair long, it was that she wasn’t strong enough for it.

 

Other ninja, better ninja, had long hair. She’d seen Orochimaru and even Haku fighting, it had never been a hindrance to them. Besides, she liked that style so she would keep her hair in this braid until she had the skills to back it up.

 

She wrote a detailed report, gathered her weapons and left.

 

Sakura got to the Hokage tower as the sun was finishing its ascent in the sky. There was already a hustle of ninja coming and going from different levels and she got to the Hokage’s office only after bumping on two different genin teams.

 

“Dismissed!” Sakura heard her say loudly from the other side of the door. The proctor who had overseen their Chuunin Exam, Mitarashi Anko, stepped out and gave her a nod before quickly exiting the building.

 

“Hokage-sama.” Sakura stepped into the room.

 

“Haruno.” Tsunade-sama folded her hands underneath her chin. “Do you have your report already?”

 

“Yes,” Sakura handed the scroll to her.

 

She waited patiently until the Hokage finished reading it, dreading the response she would get every time the blonde scowled.

 

“You were attacked by Suna nin?” Tsunade raised her eyebrows.

 

“Temari assured me they weren’t sent by the Kazekage,” Sakura fidgeted her feet. “I, uh, I assumed I should take her word for it instead of letting it escalate into a war with Suna. Was I wrong…?” Sakura trailed of in uncertainty.

 

“No,” the Hokage scoffed, “of course not.”

 

After reading some more, she put the scroll down and stared at Sakura. It took a few minutes of unabashed staring for Sakura to get enough of it.

 

“Hokage-sama?” She asked as politely as she could.

 

“You did good, Haruno.” The Hokage sighed. “This mission went better than I could’ve ever hoped for.”

 

“Forgive me, Tsunade-sama, but you don’t sound very happy about it…” Sakura looked at her with her head tilted slightly to the side in question.

 

The Hokage sighed again before running her fingers through her bangs.

 

“I need you to know that I wouldn’t have asked you to do what you did.” The blonde was looking at her intently, with a serious expression on her face but sad eyes. “In the past, age didn’t really factor in the types of mission a shinobi took. Things got better, I suppose, ever since the ban on early graduation at the Academy but I know they aren’t perfect.”

 

“Godaime-sama.” Sakura said firmly. “I’m sorry to interrupt you but I have to say this. Doing what my village needs is what is expected of me during missions. It’s why I tried to use Shinsei’s attention to our advantage. It’s why I went back to those missing nin’s hideout and… eliminated the threat to our client. I won’t fail you, Hokage-sama.”

 

“No…” Tsunade-sama pondered. “I don’t believe you will, Haruno.” She clapped her hands to the table suddenly. “Well! There’s also that second part of the mission to consider. I believe Suna will send a message soon to let us know about the outcome of their nin’s attack. Expect a summons anytime. Good work, Haruno, pass by the mission assignment desk to receive your payment, I’ll upgrade it to a B-Rank because of the missing nin. Dismissed.”

 

“Hokage-sama.” Sakura bowed and left the room.

 

The first thing she did was run towards training ground 3 and start her workout session. She would need to go buy herself some new weights soon but for now she needed to let out some steam. Her left shoulder still strained while doing her exercises but she ignored it and powered through. Anything to get her mind off the hospital.

 

She went to training ground 12 after her set and was greeted by a green blur sailing through the air towards her.

 

“Sakura-san!” Lee exclaimed.

 

“Lee-san!” Sakura couldn’t help the big smile on her face. “It’s so good to—" Sakura saw a glint of steel from the corner of her eye and ducked instinctively.

 

“You think you can disappear for a week and come back just like that, Sakura?”

 

It was Tenten, standing on a tree branch and smiling happily at her. She was out of breath and Sakura realised that she had been practicing with Lee moments ago.

 

“Oh, you’re on.” Sakura threw a kunai back and jumped to her level. Tenten parried and soon they were fighting avidly, exchanging blows and cursing at each other. One thing Sakura had learned very early on in their training sessions was that the older girl had a surprisingly dirty mouth. At some point, Lee had jumped into the fray and they were suddenly doing an all-out battle royal.

 

By the time the sun was at its apex, the three of them were lying on the ground, sweat glistening on their bodies and out of breath.

 

“Fuck, it’s hot.” Sakura complained and Tenten burst out laughing.

 

“I knew it!” She threw her head back and laughed once more when she saw Lee’s pink tinged cheeks. “I knew you would start seeing my way. It’s useless to have so much decorum in the world of ninja. Cursing is good for the soul, kouhai.”

 

“Tenten, I don’t think that’s the kind of influence a kouhai needs from their senpai!” Lee said frantically.

 

“Sorry, sorry.” Tenten waved her hand unapologetically. “You only think it’s that hot because you’re wearing the full chuunin garb, Sakura. What’s up with that?”

 

“I just don’t think bright red is ideal for field work anymore.” Sakura shrugged before wincing and stretching her arms up high.

 

“Well, yeah, sure.” Tenten nodded. “That doesn’t mean you have to go full standard uniform, you know. Maybe get at least a short-sleeved shirt?”

 

“Or you can get one of Gai-sensei’s suits! They let the body breathe without letting water escape and it’s great for—”

 

“Lee, I would rather be poked on my eye for the rest of my life than look like Gai-san.” Sakura said bluntly and Tenten laughed again. “Sorry,” she amended sheepishly, kind of afraid she had overstepped somehow.

 

“Don’t be sorry, Sakura-san,” Lee surprised her by chuckling. “I suppose the suit isn’t for everyone.”

 

“You don’t need to call me Sakura-san, you know.” Sakura smiled gently at him. “I may not want to date you but you’re still one of my best friends. You can just call me Sakura, Lee.”

 

Lee looked at her a bit dumbfounded for a moment before bursting into tears. He smiled greatly and started doing cartwheels around the field while screaming about youth and beauty and how being considered one of her best friends was probably the best thing that happened that month and that he should do five hundred push-ups to show his gratitude.

 

“Crap, I didn’t mean to do that.” Sakura whispered to herself and Tenten snorted. “Anyway, I’m off to buy some new clothes I guess.” She sighed exaggeratedly and looked at her friend from the corner of her eye. “And some new weapons…”

 

Tenten immediately turned to look at her, a big smile on her face.

 

“Lee!” She called out while pulling Sakura to her feet. “We’re going shopping! See you tomorrow!”

 

They took to the roofs and Sakura let Tenten lead her, knowing that she would probably know where the best stores were. Tenten didn’t speak until they reached a faded yellow two-story shop, squeezed between two other equally old buildings. It was near the training grounds and about a fifteen-minute walk to the tower.

 

“Oji-san!” Tenten called as they entered, the bell on top of the door ringing loudly. “We have a customer!”

 

The place looked like a fight had gone on inside. There were several weapons hanging on the walls and many short aisles holding different types of items ranging from exploding tags to complex seals. A counter sat on the right and behind it a traditional painting of a red dragon.

 

An old man came out the back separated by a dark curtain, his hair was completely white and there were deep lines on his face but something about the way he held himself told Sakura he wasn’t a frail old man. He narrowed his eyes.

 

“Let me guess.” He raised an eyebrow at Tenten and looked back at her in assessment. “Sakura?”

 

“I—I mean, yes?” Sakura stared dumbfounded at him before looking at Tenten with wide eyes.

 

“Don’t try to scare her off, Jiji.” Tenten rolled her eyes at the man and turned around to jump behind the counter. She started rummaging around beneath the counter and her voice came out a bit muffled next. “This is Sakura. Sakura, this is Oji-san, he kind of adopted me when I got out of the Academy. This is where I live and this—” Tenten popped back up with two dark boxes in her hands. “Is what you’re getting today.”

 

Sakura stepped up to the counter and her jaw hung loose when Tenten revealed the items. It was the most beautiful tantō Sakura had ever seen. The sheath was completely black and had two tiny red lines running along both sides and the hilt was the same dark red wrapped in black cloth, letting only a few crimson diamonds show. There was a cleaning and maintenance kit next to it.

 

“Before you say anything, just try it on.” Tenten held the hilt out for her and Sakura unsheathed it, revealing a black shinny blade. “High-carbon blackened steel,” she said while Sakura did some of the moves the older girl had taught her, “perfect balance and practically weightless in your grip.”

 

“Not bad for a beginner.” Oji-san nodded at her, an appraising look on his face.

 

“Don’t you love it?” Tenten asked before she could thank the old man.

 

“I do, but…” Sakura offered the blade back. “I don’t have enough money for all of this and I still need to replenish my exploding tags stock and get some new, more practical clothes.”

 

“Tenten’s friends get ten percent off anything on the store.” Oji-san shrugged. “You do that blade justice and I’ll throw in another ten and a pack of exploding tags.”

 

“Aaand,” Tenten rounded the counter and took Sakura by the shoulders. “Lee and I already bought the cleaning kit for you.”

 

“What?” Sakura exclaimed. “You shouldn’t have! Why would you--”

 

“Sakura, you made chuunin,” Tenten smiled at her, a big sunny smile. “We’re proud of you and thought you should have something.”

 

Unexpected tears sprung to Sakura’s eyes. It looked like her promise to never cry again was going terribly wrong but it was so nice hearing someone was proud of you. Her parents were distant and so focused on the family business. Whenever they did compliment her on something it was never on her ninja skills.

 

“Thank you, senpai.” She smiled so brightly her cheeks hurt.

 

Tenten’s cheeks coloured slightly and she smiled just as big. “I don’t think I can be your senpai when you have a higher rank than me, Sakura.”

 

“I still have a lot to learn from you!” Sakura insisted.

 

“Of course, you do!” Tenten brought her to the counter to pay. “We’ll make you an expert in that tantō.”

 

With her wallet considerably lighter and a promise to Oji-san to come back whenever she needed something, they left to a shinobi clothing store near the hospital. According to Tenten, the old woman who owned the place was the best at personalised clothing, that she was the one who did Gai’s suits.

 

Sakura balked at that but Tenten rushed to assure her that her things were pretty and also fight resistant and that Gai and Lee’s clothes were an abomination tailored to their liking.

 

Subaru-baa-san was half deaf and at least half her size. She had bright blue hair and a wicked tongue and she definitely had the best quality for shinobi garb even if she did insult Sakura’s hair a lot. Sakura didn’t really think the old woman could say anything about her hair given the colour she chose to have was neon, but she shut up about it when she got fifty percent off just because Tenten said she’d been promoted.

 

Subaru-bassan was a kind woman despite her sharp edges.

 

Sakura left the shop feeling lighter, like she could jump into a battle and everything would just flow. She wouldn’t have any clothes that billowed or restricted her movements and she would have a reliable weapon when her chakra reserves failed her.

 

Tenten had convinced her to buy five items—some standard issued pants that reached just past her knees and that she would have to bind, shorter thighs than she usually wore for when it got warm, a skin tight black shirt with no sleeves and a slightly raised neckline to wear under her flak jacket, knee high black boots that looked like they could survive the earth blowing up and still look good and she exchanged her normal genin sandals and only payed a few hundred ryo more for black ones with closed toes.

 

Sakura was very happy with her choices and had already changed into the shorts and tight shirt.

 

“What’s on your mind?” Tenten looked her in the eye but quickly averted hers, kicking a pebble away. “Nevermind, forget I said anything. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She gave a clearly forced laugh. “It’s not like I’m any good at emotional talk, anyway.”

 

“You’re not making me uncomfortable, Tenten.” Sakura gave a slight laugh of her own. “This is what friends do, right? Talk to each other?”

 

“I guess I’m just not used to having friends… especially female friends.” Tenten’s cheeks flushed prettily and she shrugged.

 

“You’re doing great, Tenten.” Sakura offered the girl a tiny smile before the thoughts that she had been pushing to the back of her mind resurfaced and it died shortly after.

 

“There is something bothering you,” Tenten said quietly. “You can tell me what it is, you know? It might help.”

 

Sakura highly doubted that. She couldn’t possibly say all the terrible, terrible thoughts running through her head out loud and if she ever did, she was positive there would be nothing Tenten could do to help her.

 

There was something, though, something that had been bothering her for a while and just after the disaster of her first leading mission could she pinpoint what it was. Ninja were pretty useless on the field with injured comrades.

 

That first mission to Wave showed how unprepared they were to deal with it and the Chunin Exams made it clearer but she had to feel it like this—visceral and bone deep—for it to make sense.

 

Ino could have died.

 

If Kakashi’s team hadn’t interfered, she would have died and it would have been Sakura’s fault. Because it didn’t matter that all the logical and analytical parts of her brain told her that  she couldn’t have done anything about the situation. Sakura had been team leader. Ino was her best friend. It was her fault.

 

“I was useless.” Sakura said finally. “Completely, utterly, useless against my best friend bleeding to death. Why don’t they teach basic medic ninjutsu to team leaders? Just imagine how much lower death rates would get and no one would ever have to go through—”

 

Go through what I have, was what she was thinking but the words wouldn’t make it past her lips.

 

“You know, that was one of Tsunade-sama’s main concern for Konoha.” Tenten smiled brightly at the mention of her idol. “She actually brought up to the Sandaime a program for there to be an iryo-nin on every team, but he shut it down.”

 

“What?” Sakura exclaimed. “Why would he do that?”

 

“Medic ninjutsu is very hard and not many people have the aptitude to stay at the hospital and learn it.” Tenten shrugged. “Konoha would lose quite a few able-bodied field ninja.”

 

“That’s just plain stupid.” Sakura whispered.

 

“Yeah, well.” Tenten smiled brightly. “Let’s hope that with Tsunade-sama as Hokage we can flush out all that testosterone out of Konoha and actually get things done right.”

 

Sakura let out an unexpected bark of laughter.

 

“Amen, sister.”

 

“Wait a second,” Tenten stopped in her tracks. “Oh my God. That’s it!”

 

“What?” Sakura asked hesitatingly, not particularly liking the excited look on her friend's face.

 

“You should ask Tsunade-sama to teach you medical ninjutsu!” Tenten exclaimed.

 

Sakura stared at the girl wide-eyed. Where had that come from?

 

“Yeah, right.” Sakura scoffed.

 

“No wait, hear me out!” Tenten put her strong, calloused hands on Sakura’s shoulders. “Have you ever thought why you were placed on Team Seven? I mean, really thought about it?”

 

“I was the only civilian who had enough good grades to graduate, Tenten, they needed someone to fill up Naruto and Sasuke’s team.”

 

“But it’s more than that, Sakura.” Tenten’s face was serious and earnest. “Team Seven and all the other teams aren’t random. They each carry something from their antecessors. The Will of Fire carries on.”

 

Sakura frowned at the girl thoughtfully. She wasn’t stupid. She had read Kakashi’s file before and she knew he had been taught by the Yondaime. She also knew that the Yondaime himself had been taught by Jiraiya and now Jiraiya had taken Naruto out of the village to teach him.

 

Granted, Orochimaru had been cast out of Konoha and Sakura didn’t figure someone had planned for him to teach any of them anything—she had long realised that Kakashi was meant to make Sasuke his apprentice of sorts—but Sasuke was still under his tutelage now, weather it was a good thing or not.

 

All members of Team Seven had gone on to learn from one of the Sannin. That left her Tsunade.

 

“I imagine your chakra control is pretty good.” Tenten said.

 

“What?” Sakura looked at her completely surprised. How had she known that?

 

“That’s why you were chosen for Team Seven, Sakura.” Tenten’s smile was so big it must have hurt. “You have enough chakra control to follow in Tsunade-hime’s footsteps. You were always meant to be her apprentice.”

 

An unexpected flare of anger cursed through Sakura. How dare they set her up like that? She had never wanted to be a med-nin. Who were they to say that she had to be the Godaime’s apprentice? But then common sense came back to her and she felt a different type of energy coursing through her.

 

This was good. Being Tsunade-hime’s apprentice, being the Hokage’s apprentice would change a lot of things for her, politically speaking. It would be just like having a clan backing her up if not better. Most importantly, she could learn how to keep her friends safe. She would never have to go through what she did the day before.

 

Before she could say anything else, a lone brown bird flew close to them, its yellow feet signalling its status as summoning bird. The Hokage was calling for her.

 

“Looks like the Hokage wants to speak to me too.” Sakura murmured to Tenten.

 

-

Notes:

Hey, peeps, sorry about the wait, life has been INSANE this past few weeks. I wrote a lot (I'm currently about ten chapters ahead of this) but I just couldn't get into the mindset to sit down, edit and post... Sorry, but I rather take some time to myself and give you something good than post shitty chapters. Even if I'm not completely satisfied with this one... -.-'

This A/N is about to get LONG, so prepare yourselves.

First things first, the name of the chapter! After quite a lot of freaking out on wondering just wtf I should name this chapter, I reread it for the 161421654th time and decided I should go with what this chapter is about. Ultimately, hidden behind a lot of angst and blushing Tenten's because Sakura is just so cute, it was about giving the MC something to inspire her to grow. A series of happenings is making Sakura go through despair and angstangstangst so she can build herself up and improve herself. Every main character in Naruto had that moment (Sasuke and the Uchiha Massacre, Kakashi and his team, etc) and even Sakura had hers (the Forest of Death) but the authors didn't follow through. So, yeah, this chapter is called Sakura Saku (Sakura Blossoms), the same name as the episode where Sakura cuts her hair and 'leaves behind' her childhood ways.

 

Second! Did you guys like Kakashi's PoV? I personally hated it and you guys shouldn't expect another one of those for quite a while because our main boi is going to do his usual disappearing act, but I promise that he'll be back and, oh boy, am I excited for when that happens hihi

Third, I don't know! I didn't like this chapter at all and I thought that Ino and Hinata's wounds were a bit confusing??? If anyone didn't get it, the first weapons thrown at them were coated in poison and that's why Ino has to stay longer at the hospital and why Hinata passed out when they got there (all the running making her blood pump faster and making the small amount of poison from the tiny cut she got spread faster). Sorry, about that but I literally couldn't look at this chapter anymore and had no idea of how to make that better.

 

Now let's talk about Sakura. My sweet baby snapping at Kakashi at the begining was kind of harsh, but please bear in mind she's going through a lot, things are going to get VERY angsty with our main gurl, especially as she goes through the good ole teenage days. Imagine having to go through those hellish years of finding yourself while still coming to terms with the fact that her body was basically a tool for the village and turning into a killer. Sakura, with Inner's help, found a bit of a coping mechanism of shutting herself away from reality but it'll still have some consequences. The chapter itself, was supposed to represent that. In the begining, Sakura is worried/in shock, after hearing her Hokage's orders, then she shakes herself off and buries her emotions during her shower/putting her 'armor' on and we see her do a complete 180 while with Tenten. I hope that came through, I feel like a shitty writer.

 

OKAY. I'M DONE.

 

Thank you so much for reviewing!!! You guys have no idea how happy it makes me and I'm sorry I couldn't get back to all of you, I'll try my best from this chapter onwards to reply to you guys as soon as I see the comments <3

Chapter 8: Sakura no Ketsui

“Suna’s council sent you a thank you letter and payment for an A-rank mission.” Tsunade-sama said as soon as Sakura entered her office. “Under your mission records an ANBU-type has been added.”

“What?” Sakura exclaimed before she could help herself.

The Godaime sighed.

“They don’t really have a closed ANBU system like we do, just ANBU-type missions. For how you handled the first missing-nin that attacked you, successfully extracted information from them on field and then proceeded to exterminate their hideout, you now have a foreign ANBU status.”

Tsunade-sama sounded resigned if a little surprised but Sakura couldn’t focus on deciphering her Hokage’s microexpressions. Suna ANBU-type missions? What would happen to her mission roster here in Konoha? Would she have to go to ANBU here now? She voiced her questions hurriedly, almost not registering the words out of her mouth.

“There will be certain changes,” the Hokage’s eyes softened with something like regret. “You are now on Suna’s Bingo Book like all their ANBU-type ninjas are so you’ll get a bit more recognition outside but I asked them to explicitly put your rank as chuunin in Konoha so your bounty shouldn’t be high.” She crossed her hands together. “Apart from a bonus, Konoha won’t be changing anything more for you, Haruno. It’s bad enough that you had to go through a mission like this so young, I don’t want this to escalate into something else.”

Sakura knew what that meant. Historically, civilian born ninja like her that manage to get people’s attention were often scaled for more dangerous missions. Seduction missions, ANBU missions that were too suicidal to consider sending a clan kid. Lower branch’s and civilians were the ones who most took missions like that and Sakura had just proved that she could do it.

Despite the Hokage’s assurance, Sakura couldn’t risk being lost to the system like that. She had to stay where she was and alive if she wanted to protect her friends. Whatever doubts and insecurities that clouded her mind were pushed to the side as she bowed low to her Hokage and spoke clearly.

“Godaime-sama, please teach me everything you know.”

Sakura counted a minute before the Hokage asked, “Why?”

Still holding her bow, Sakura replied.

“I want to protect my friends. I need to protect them. I need to keep them safe and I can’t do that if I don’t have anyone to teach me how.” Sakura remembered Tenten’s words from earlier and hoped she didn’t sound to cocky by repeating them. “I was the one with the best chakra control in my class, I can take anything you throw at me.”

The words had been barely out of her mouth when her senses caught the telltale sounds of an object moving fast towards her. Sakura ducked instinctively and a second later the wall behind her cracked, a paperweight embedded in it so deeply it had almost run through. From the height of it, she was sure it would have hit her right on the forehead and the impact would have been enough to kill her.

Sakura also knew that the Godaime had barely used any strength at all.

“I don’t waste my times with losers.” Tsunade-hime’s voice was as sharp as her gaze when Sakura turned back to her, forcing her muscles to relax and not to look like she was ready to attack her Hokage. “If I take you in, there will be no quitting. You won’t stop until I say you’re done, you won’t rest until I say you can rest and I won’t take anything less than your hundred percent focus and effort.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama!” Sakura bowed even lower, her heart thumping so hard she felt like it could rip her ribcage open any second.

She couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Tsunade-hime, the female Sannin, the Godaime Hokage had just taken her in as a student. Sakura, the civilian nobody was going to be under the tutelage of this goddess of a woman.

“Call me Shishou.” Tsunade sighed. “Maa, I really thought you would’ve asked me this earlier. I guess I owe Shizune now.”

“Eh?” Sakura straightened her back to look at the blonde.

“The Hatake brat had suggested me to take you as an apprentice as soon as I got to the village.” Tsunade shrugged. “He said you had the right skills and temperament for a med-nin.”

“Oh,” Sakura said.

It was somewhat surprising to hear that. Kakashi had never shown a particular interest in teaching her much of anything, she never would have thought that he would go as far as recommend her to one of the greatest kunoichi of all times. It was kind of overwhelming, the thought, and it kind of made her feel like a jerk for how she had yelled at him before.

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Tsunade asked her.

“I—I don’t know,” Sakura stuttered, unsure of how to deal with such a powerful woman’s full undivided attention. “I never thought you would accept me as an apprentice. I’m just a civilian kid with no extraordinary skills to speak for…”

“Sakura,” Tsunade barked, her beautiful features contorted into a deep frown. “When I accepted you as my apprentice in meant more than teaching you medical ninjutsu. It means teaching you everything I know, from combat skills to healing skills to political training. It means passing on my Will of Fire to you and I won’t have my legacy be a quivering mess of a girl with low self-esteem.”

Sakura could only gape at her. She was so surprised by the outburst that she could barely muster any indignation.

“From now on you will bow to no one. You will speak your mind and act like my apprentice, do you understand?”

“Hai, Shishou!” Sakura had enough presence of mind not to bend her back but she still nodded her head to her master. “I will not disappoint you.”

“You haven’t so far.” The corner of Tsunade’s lips lifted almost imperceptibly. “Your training begins now. Head towards the Hospital and find Shizune. Tell her you need access to medical tomes, she’ll know which ones to give you. Next Saturday I will quiz you on what’s on those books and if you pass, we’ll begin the real training. Dismissed!”

-

By Thursday, Sakura was already bored out of her mind.

She had taken the medical tomes Shizune—the dangerous, soft-spoken woman that always accompanied the Hokage—had given her and read them all methodically. She worked out a nice little routine for herself and stuck to it until she could recite the new material on physiology and chakra manipulation by heart.

Sakura woke up every day to do the advanced workout Lee had set for her. Then she spent her morning reading and taking notes on the gigantic books. She had a pre-lunch spar with Tenten whenever they could and if the girl wasn’t available, Sakura would bring flowers to Ino’s bedside.

During the afternoons she would read some more before doing a late-night training session before bed. She also may or may not have spent a few sleepless nights on her books.

She couldn’t help it if they were amazing.

Not only was it a completely new subject for her, which always excited her, the complexity of it appealed to the part of her that liked solving problems. It was incredible to discover just how much chakra could do.

It was reading Medical Ninjutsu Volume 1 that she found out she might have a problem in the future. The part of moulding her chakra and tuning it to other people’s sounded hard but doable, what she feared most was that she wouldn’t have enough chakra for it.

Her chakra reserves were average at best and she would be completely useless in the battlefield if she wasted all her chakra healing someone.

She had to do something about it. She just didn’t know what. So Sakura did what she always did when she was stuck and didn’t know what to do. She went to the library.

The genin at the desk directed her to a section of books on chakra theory and left her there. It was a bit of a stretch, she knew, but she refused to think that being born a civilian could cripple her so much.

Lee was doing fine, she reminded herself. But then Inner whispered, Lee doesn’t use chakra, and she felt her hopes plummet.

Sakura didn’t know how long she stood there, staring blankly at a page that could have been written in ancient codes for all she got from it. She couldn’t let this bring her down. She wouldn’t. Not when she had come so far.

Not when she had already bloodied her hands and used her body to get her where she was.

With renewed energies and a bitter sense of determination, Sakura powered through the books. When it was midnight and the library was closing, she booked out the two remaining tomes and left.

The track to her house was long, she had to go past all the central Konoha where most ninja lived to get to where the street market was and where most civilians gathered around. But Sakura barely noticed anything around her. Her feet guided her truthfully and left her eyes free to glide over the words and consume them like they were the air she needed to breathe.

“Sakura!” She heard her dad’s voice just before his arms enveloped her. “We were so worried! Where have you been, young lady?”

Young lady, the words echoed in her head, as if she was five years old again and caught sneaking an umeboshi out of her mum’s kitchen. As if she hadn’t had a man’s life on her hands and his last words be ones of spiteful hate because she had tortured him. As if she didn’t know the feeling of having her best friend’s blood covering her.

“Are you listening to me, Sakura?” Her mum had joined her dad in scolding her and she could vaguely remember being ushered inside the house. “Just because you are the Hokage’s apprentice now doesn’t mean you don’t have to obey us still. You will be home every day by nine o’clock, young lady, or you will be sorry!”

“Just because I’m the Hokage’s apprentice?” Sakura felt Inner taking over before she could so much as try and make sense of what was going on. “Why can’t you understand how big a thing that is? Why can’t you see how important it is for me? I need to dedicate myself as her student, okaa-san!”

“I’m not saying you don’t but when it comes down to it, you’re still a thirteen-year-old girl and my daughter!” Her mum exclaimed while her dad crossed his arms from behind her and they both stared her down.

“By the laws of Konoha I’m already an adult, mother!” Sakura glared at them, righteous anger coursing through her veins.

“While you’re sleeping under our roof, you’ll follow our rules.” Her father finally spoke, staring down at her seriously. “Nine o’clock.”

With an infuriated cry, Sakura threw her hands in the air and stormed up the stairs to her room. She didn’t know how to deal with this.

She had always been the perfect daughter, never stepping the slightest bit out of line. The only thing Sakura could ever remember doing for herself and not because it was expected of her was entering the Academy, starting her career as a ninja, but even then, her parents had to sign a consent form.  

She knew they had hoped she would quit the first time she took a punch to the face. That they still hoped she would give up being a ninja, especially now that Team 7 had disbanded. They had been counting on her giving up from the moment they signed the sheet when she was six years old.

What they didn’t know was that she learned how to take a punch. In the Forest of Death she had taken hit after hit and still clung on to her enemy with sheer force of will, the same one she had seen in Naruto and admired so much.

She had learned from Sasuke that solitude only meant she would have more time to focus on her skills and Kakashi had taught her the importance of a team.

Sakura would fight for her boys until the bitter end. She would get strong enough to lift them both on her shoulders and carry the weight of their past for them. She would be there when they needed her to lean on and for that she couldn’t let something as petty as a squabble with her parents get to her.

The answer to her problem came to her so suddenly, she almost fell out of bed with the force of her gasp.

Naruto’s sunny face brought to mind not only his determination but his signature move. Kage Bunshin.

He had taken the one thing he just couldn’t manage and mastered it and Sakura would do the same.

The books she had read so far seemed to be in a consensus that the easiest way to grow your chakra reserves, especially for someone her age, was to deplete them consistently. The clone would half her chakra immediately and she would still be able to work in some chakra control when trying to use as little as possible while creating and maintaining one.

She wondered how long she could keep a clone functioning and how far she could send it.

With an excited grin, Sakura formed the seals and focused her chakra. Exactly half of what she had, no more, no less. She wouldn’t spend a single drop of it more than necessary.

“Kage Bunshin no jutsu!”

It was with a low ‘pop’ that an exact replica of her jumped into existence. No smoke, no loud noise. She had done it.

“Yes!” She pumped her fist in the air before doing a shimmy. She couldn’t believe it had actually worked. The focus she needed to maintain her clone was practically non-existent from this close, now she had to test out how far she could stretch their connection. “Walk slowly in the direction of the training fields, keep to the shadows.”

Her clone blinked at her. “And what do you expect me to do until you lose your focus?”

Huh. It seemed her clone had an attitude. That was oddly offending.

“Take a book with you, brat.” Sakura crossed her arms in front of her and her clone sent her a deadpan look before grabbing the last tome she had yet to read. It was a look that told Sakura exactly what the clone thought of her cursing at herself. “Go on, then.”

“Roger that!” Her clone saluted her mockingly before jumping out of her window, the soft sound of her feet hitting the ground echoing loudly for Sakura. She hoped her parents didn’t hear anything.

Sakura sat on her bed and closed her eyes. It was easy so far to keep her chakra steady and fluid enough to maintain her clone but she knew the further away it got from her, the harder it would be. She picked up her book and went back to her reading.

It was hard work, keeping her focus both on what she was reading and on her chakra fluctuations. She usually would have read at least a few chapters by now but her clone had almost left her neighbourhood and it was increasingly hard to keep it up.

She was sweating now. Her breath was laboured and she could barely read the words on the paper anymore. Reaching so far was hard.

The moment her clone stepped into the main street, she almost lost her hold of it. She could feel it immediately taking a step back, the connection not as strained, before it gradually loosened until her clone was climbing through the window. With another quick salute, the clone popped out of existence and the book it was holding fell to the floor with a thud that echoed inside her head.

 

Sakura gasped with the intensity of information coming back to her. She tipped to the side and stayed still as her vision blurred with past and present sensations.

She could feel the ground beneath the soles of her sandals and she could feel the cool breeze of the night but most of all she could see all the words of the chakra control book her clone had been reading. The way she processed things and thoughts made sure the words and the meaning behind them were forever ingrained in her brain but having them coming back to her as they were, so fast, was like a thousand punches to her head.

Sakura gasped for a few moments, her eyes scrunched closed and head pounding before it dawned on her.

Her clone’s experiences had come back to her. If she could manage to keep it up for long enough, even if only for more than half an hour, she would be able to increase her learning capacity. It would also be the best chakra control exercise she could do without the fear of potentially harming herself, especially because she had no one to oversee this kind of training.

The downside of all this, at the moment, was that while her clone had been able to focus on her book normally, Sakura herself had at least halved her concentration. So far, the experiment was useless because even if she did double her learning capacity for the ten minutes it took her clone to reach her limits, her own capacity dropped drastically.

So maybe, for now, it would be best if she didn’t focus her training on sending her clone further away. Maybe she could start with something small while she read the materials Tsunade-shishou sends her. Something like tree walking.

“Kage Bunshin no jutsu!” Sakura said, focusing yet again to use exactly half her chakra reserves.

Her clone appeared with a pop and echoed her grin. She now had a little less than a fourth of her chakra reserves.

“Yosh.” Sakura got up from her bed and pointed at the wall her bed was leaning against. “Sit down on it and read as much as you can. When you start feeling sleepy, do some sit ups without breaking the connection with the wall.”

“Hai!” Her clone jumped straight to the wall and sat down just as she told it to.

Sakura took a few steadying breaths before doing the same. It was harder to do this than she expected but after a while of matching her chakra flow to her clone’s and attaching herself to the wall, she managed to fall into some sort of meditative state that made it easier to read the words on her book.

The chakra control took a place on the back of her head while she read and before she knew it, three hours had passed. Her chakra levels had dropped so much she had barely any to stay sitting like she was and she simply left the connection go, falling to her bed in an exhausted heap.

She released her clone almost as an afterthought and with a gasp, received its experiences. Naturally, it was all too much and before Sakura could even comprehend what had happened, she passed out.

-

Notes:

Yo! I'm back. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Life is going to get a bit harder pretty soon because I'm back at looking for places to rent and better paying jobs while catching up on my assignments and my mom is visiting me soon BUT I was thinking for quite some time of setting up a posting deadline for myself. So, you guys can expect a new chapter every second and last weekend of the month, roughly. As I go along, I'll try to update more often, especially the next few chapters which will be very training heavy and which will contain quite a few time jumps. I know those can get confusing if updates are too far between, so let me know if you have any questions, 'kay?

Btw, chapter's title comes from the anime episode Sakura's Determination.

I can't express in words how your reviews/kudos/bookmarks make me happy. Truly.

I don't know if many of you follow me on Tumblr (s-scorpiusmlfy) but there was a comment there that just made me break down crying in the middle of the tram, it was ridiculous, but that's how you guys make me feel. This chapter was dedicated to you amibadwolf and all the people who left me a comment and made me smile on shitty days.

<3

Chapter 9: How to Become an Iryo-nin 101

Notes:

Hello, lovelies! I’m really sorry for how long this took but life has been crazy! The next update will be around mid June bc by then, I’ll be back home! Thank you so much for all the continuous support, you guys are truly the best <3

“Sakura!” Her mum banged on her door. “There’s a chunin in my living room saying he can only leave with you. Hokage’s orders apparently.”

Sakura blinked blearily at her ceiling and tried to situate herself. It was always dishoriating waking up after passing out and she could still feel a faint throb to her head when she moved to get up.

Yesterday had exceeded all expectations she had. Working with a clone had opened her eyes to so many new ways she could improve herself. She could use it to hone her chakra control and expand her reserves but there was so much more. She could use it to spar with herself and double her learning speed and never depend on anyone else. Not to mention the thousand of ways using a clone with perfect control could be useful during a mission.

“Sakura!” The annoyance in her kaa-san’s voice was clear and just what she needed to get a move on.

“I’m coming!”

Sakura jumped around her room, putting on the lighter version of her uniform quickly and arming herself with all the weapons she regularly used, taking care to hide a few. She didn’t know what to expect of the summoning.

She did a quick check to make sure she had an emergency backpack ready before going downstairs.

“Kotetsu!”

“Yo.” The man raised his chin in greeting and regarded her with an amused expression on his face. “Are we going to war?”

“We’re going to Tsunade-shishou, right?” Sakura grinned at him, his easygoingness a fresh start to her day.

“Good point.” Kotetsu saluted her mother who had been watching with a sour expression on her face. “C’mon, kid. We don’t have all day.”

“Bye, okaa-san.” Sakura sent a strained smile towards her mother’s general direction and left, quickly pulling her fellow chūnin behind her.

He looked at her with a curious expression and Sakura knew he had picked up on the awkward tension between them. Kotetsu didn’t say anything, though, only took to the roofs with her and chattered away about the latest gossips until they reached the Hokage tower.

Shizune was hurrying out of her office when they got there and she barely smiled in their direction before moving on, a pile of scrolls on her arms. They entered the office without knocking.

“Kotetsu!” Tsunade threw a scroll at the man who caught it easily. “You and Izumo are to meet Gai at the gates for your next mission. B-rank, anything you need to know is inside that scroll. Dismissed.”

“Uh, hai, Tsunade-sama…” Kotetsu blinked dazedly at Sakura, reeling a bit from the woman’s abruptness before he shook himself and turned to leave. “See you soon, Sakura.”

“Good luck!” Sakura waved at him.

“Sakura.” Tsunade’s voice was as sharp as her gaze. “Shizune told me she gave you all the books you needed to read before Saturday. You’ve read them all already?”

“Yes, shishou.” Sakura nodded. “I’m a fast reader. I’m working on another set of books now on chakra.”

“Chakra?” Tsunade raised an eyebrow and put her chin on top of her linked hands.

“Chakra control, chakra manipulation and how to increase chakra reserves,” Sakura said shyly, trying not to sink into herself as the Hokage waited for her to continue. “I figured it would be useless to learn how to do medical ninjutsu if I didn’t have enough chakra to back it up. Falling into a chakra coma during a battle doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Iryo-nin are trained to use the least amount of chakra they can to heal a comrade,” Tsunade challenged.

“I know.” Sakura squared her jaw and took a deep breath to steady herself. She knew her shishou was testing her resolve. “But I have a civilian background against me. Right now I feel confident I can do simple techniques without spending any unnecessary chakra but medical ninjutsu is a thousand times harder than what I’m practicing on. I’m also at the edge of the ideal age for increasing one’s chakra reserves, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“What you’re practicing on…” Tsunade trailed off, raising both her eyebrows in a sign for Sakura to keep going.

“Shadow clones.” Sakura cleared her throat. “A shadow clone, to be more specific. I’m using it to empty my chakra reserves in a controlled way, I can stay safe while also training myself in actual chakra control by making it go further away from me. Then I realised I could actually double my results by using the clone’s experiences, you know? So I put the whole training it to go further away on the backburner while I have reading materials but once I get on to practicing, I’ll definitely go back to that. But, you know, right now, the whole doubling my reading/learning capacity is a pretty huge thing don’t you think?”

Sakura stared wide eyed at the Hokage who stared right back at her.

“Shadow clone.”

“Yes.”

A beat of silence.

“That’s very clever, Sakura.” A teasing smile Sakura had never seen curled on her painted lips. “And also very sly of you.”

“I didn’t mean to—“

“No, this is good. Short cuts like these are going to give you the edge you need to reach your teammates level. Your barely average chakra reserves are a problem and working on enhancing them and on how to lower your expenditure to a minimum is a great idea.” Tsunade’s smile turned sharper. “Good job, Sakura.”

Sakura went to bow but at the last minute remembered herself and ended up giving a weird nodd of her head instead.

“Thank you, Tsunade-shishou.”

“Now that you read all the books, I think it’s time for your test.” Tsunade clasped her hands together and leaned back on her chair. She opened a drawer and took out a piece of paper and a pencil. “I was going to give you a full week to memorise everything but I’m curious about your progress so far. Let’s begin. Draw one human body for all the main systems, organs, veins, chakra. We’ll do the quiz based on them.”

Sakura drew them slowly but surely, her mind easily projecting an image of what she needed. She had studied everything carefully and Tsunade had started off with easy questions but the further they got into the questionnaire, the harder it was to answer.

At first it was strictly about the contents of the books but then Tsunade-shishou started asking about specific scenarios for specific types of surgeries and even moved on to creating fighting scenarios in which she had to perform on field aid.

You have three teammates, one of them has a broken femur, the other a stab to the gut and the last is unconscious for an unknown reason. The enemy is still able to fight. What do you do?

Your teammate can’t walk because of a broken leg and you’re outnumbered. What do you do?

You got separated from your team by the enemy and won the fight but is injured. You don’t know your teammates condition or where they are. What do you do?

At first, Sakura floundered at these what-do-you-do questions but after a while, she got the hang of it, answering with what she thought was the most logical course of action.

“Well,” Tsunade got up from her chair and went around the table to lean against it. “You got all the theory questions right, somehow. That’s good. A solid base it’s what makes a good medic.” She didn’t spare a single smile her way before continuing. “However, you failed all the scenario questions.”

Sakura gaped at her, shame colouring her cheeks. How could she have gotten them all wrong?

“I—I’m sorry, shishou.” Sakura bowed low, hoping so fervently this didn’t mean she had lost her apprenticeship that she felt it in her veins.

Tsunade’s warm hands settled on either side of her shoulders and straightened her up.

“What did I say about bowing, girl?” She leaned down a bit so they were eye to eye. “You got it all wrong because it doesn’t matter what you answer here, safe behind these four walls. Being a combat medic in real life doesn’t equate only to what injuries you have to take care of and how many enemies there are around you. Rules mean very little on the battlefield and that is something you’ll only learn by practicing. It won’t happen for a while, but you still need to be prepared for the reality of it. Do you get it?”

Sakura did. She really did. She had seen during her first C-rank how everything goes wrong so fast. Had learned first hand that the Shinobi Rule Book couldn’t be followed completely to the letter. The battlefield was different from learning about things in the Academy.

“Yes, shishou.” Sakura replied quietly, the heaviness of her short experiences suddenly laying hard on her shoulders.

“Maa.” Tsunade clapped her shoulders hard enough to bruise. “I think it’s time I teach you what every medic-nin learns during their first lesson. How to bring a fish back to life.”

Sakura had read on that exercise thoroughly and was fairly confident she could do it but her stomach still rolled a bit with nerves.

Tsunade-shishou explained it once again for her while they waited for Shizune to come back with a large bowl of water with a fish in it. Sakura was handed a scroll and a brush to do the healing seal herself and was pleased that it passed Shizune’s inspection.

“Good sealing skill,” the older woman said with a kind smile. “You have steady hands.”

Sakura felt her cheeks heat. It felt good to be praised, even if for something simple.

The fish exercise was harder than she expected it to be. She knew every single detail and step to it, had read it and knew exactly what to do—insert your chakra into the fish’s network, get it to stimulate the fish’s own dying chakra back into motion to bring it back—but it still took her most of the morning just trying to insert her chakra into its network. It also didn’t help that Tsunade-shishou kept asking questions in between the mountain of paperwork she was taking care of.

“What are you doing now, Sakura?”

“Inserting my chakra very carefully, shishou.”

“Yes, but why so carefully?”

“I don’t want to fry his tiny chakra system up with large quantities of my chakra.”

“Why work on a dead fish?”

“Small animals have simpler chakra systems, it makes it easier for chakra insertion.”

“What else?”

“It needs to be dead so I can practice coaching its chakra into movement through its coils again. It’s a similar experience to the one iryo-nin do on patients. We have to tune our chakra frequency to our patients, a more difficult task than this one but similar enough.”

Sakura didn’t take a break when lunchtime came around. She stuffed an onigiri Shizune brought right into her mouth and didn’t even finish chewing it before going back to work. She was sweating a lot and she knew her chakra levels wouldn’t handle much more but she still kept at it.

The first time she felt her chakra enter the fish’s network she almost jumped around in joy. Somehow, she managed to keep still and focused. Her chakra felt heavy compared to the feeling of the fish’s chakra so she instinctively reduced the flow she was sending into it, trying to make it as light and airy as the one beneath her hands.

The seals on the scroll helped her focus and pretty soon, she found herself deep into some kind of meditative place where she used her chakra as a guide. She could feel everything with it. It was so palpable, so real beneath her hands she could practically see it.

The fish’s chakra network was almost empty, only a single thread circled around it so slowly it almost looked like it wasn’t circling at all but it was enough for Sakura to know which direction to go.

Her first attempt was so careful and small she could barely feel any difference. She tried again, increasing her chakra influx and speed by exactly 5% at each try. When she got to her third attempt, the fish took a gasping breath and started debating against the floor.

Sakura opened her eyes, not even realising she had closed them, and turned to look at her shishou and Shizune. Her smile fell quickly when she saw the looks on their faces.

“There was no green light.” Shizune gaped at her. “But the fish is alive.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

Tsunade gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh before shaking her head.

“No, Sakura. You just managed to perform the first task with precisely no chakra wasting. What Shizune is so surprised about is that your hands didn’t emit any green chakra, common when a med-nin uses healing chakra. What most people don’t know is that it is only a visual manifestation of the chakra the user is spending but the body isn’t absorbing. You inserted the necessary amount of chakra into the fish’s system and only the slightest bit escaped. The only thing glowing green was your palm and even then it was very little.”

“Oh,” Sakura said dumbly.

“But how…” Shizune was still staring at her with wide eyes and Sakura couldn’t keep her cheeks from flushing again.

“Sakura must have better chakra control than we previously thought.” Tsunade rummaged around her drawers for a bit before finding a yellow, scrunched up piece of paper. “Come here girl.”

Sakura went to her desk, her steps a bit cautious when she caught the excited expression on the Hokage’s face.

“This is an old test for chakra control. It’s quite simple, just insert your chakra into the paper and try to smooth it out.” Tsunade put it on top of her desk and reached for Sakura’s hands to put them over the small piece of paper.

Sakura was a bit thrown by the quick turn of events but still did as she was told. She spread her hands carefully over the paper and did the same steps she had taken with the fish. The paper obviously didn’t possess any chakra network but it seemed like it welcomed her chakra easily, so she figured it was made from a chakra paper.

Its lack of resistance made it easy for Sakura to spread the tiniest amount of chakra around to see what she could do. Just like she had felt the fish before, she could feel every plane and crease of the paper. She could see it even with her eyes closed.

Sakura didn’t really have a guideline to follow on this one but decided to take a risk and force the chakra she had introduced into it to the crease closest to the bottom left edge. She focused her efforts on flattening the highest part of the crease, using the table beneath it as a guide.

It was slow, tedious work and by the end of it, Sakura was sweating so much she had sweated through her sleeveless shirt but she was gratified when she opened her eyes and found the yellow paper completely straight on the table.

“Right.” Tsunade laughed sharply when she turned the paper around to look at some red markings on the back. “A ninja who has above 70% is considered to have good enough chakra control to become a medic-nin. The usual rate that anyone can enhance on the chakra control department during medical training is about 2%. You, Sakura, have precisely 97,3% control over your chakra as you are right now. That means…”

Shizune continued for her in a shocked whisper. “That means that by the time you’re done with your training you’ll have about 99,3% control.” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “This is amazing.”

“Do you have enough chakra to make a clone?” Tsunade asked her, a sharp gleam to her eyes.

“Hai, shishou.” Sakura formed the seal and focused on using exactly half of her chakra. It was with its usual soft pop that her clone appeared.

“Amazing!” Shizune smiled at her. “Not a single bit of smoke and very little sound. This could be very useful during covert missions.”

“Indeed,” Tsunade agreed, “but it can also be a hinder. Sometimes during direct combat missions, you can hide surprise elements with the smoke from a clone. Can you try doing it?”

Sakura nodded at her shishou and focused herself with a seal again. It was actually harder to release more chakra than necessary after getting used to setting herself on a strict hold but she managed it. She released exactly 3% more than she would normally do and watched in satisfaction as a clone burst into existence with a cloud of smoke that was slightly bigger than the ones she had seen from Naruto.

“Excellent. Tomorrow we will start on scrapes.” Tsunade smiled at her. “Training you will be fun.”

Sakura had it in herself to feel happy to hear that but her shishou’s voice sounded distant to her. She registered the sky outside and how night had fallen, she noticed the village had quieted and that the tower was almost silent but Sakura couldn’t react anymore. All she could do was give the tiniest of smiles before passing out.

-

 

 

 

Notes:

I’ll let you guys know in advance, this is going to be a long ass rant and probably a bit too salty for some.

Oh-kay! First things first, thanks for everyone who pointed out last chapter about the book! I’m writing very much in advance and, because I don’t have a Beta, when I go back to the chapters to post them I basically edit grammar and typos. I actually had a reason for the book to have been dropped by the clone but changed my mind while I was writing (the character who was supposed to pick it up is only going to make an appearance later on in the story) and when I went back to it, it just completely slipped my mind. My bad.

ABOUT SHADOW CLONES: You guys have been wonderful for the most part but some people were really bothered by it (and one in particular was even pretty rude about it) so I thought I’d do some explaining. In the series, and I’m saying this bc I did go back and checked the episodes and spent countless of hours on Naruto Wiki, doing shadow clones is supposedly a jounin-level technique. Doing the taju kage bunshin (the one Naruto does) is a forbidden jutsu because just imagine how fucked up life would be if people could just conjure massive armies on the go. Anyways, I call bullshit. We see Kakashi telling Naruto that he’s the only person in the village that could successfully use the clones for learning and that even he had problems with it and could only have a few for a few hours…. uhm, okay? So, you’re telling me that Tsunade with her crazy chakra control and massive chakra reserves couldn’t do it? What makes a jutsu difficult, by the way, because I find it hard to believe that Naruto would ever be able to do something Tsunade couldn’t (at least before he became the op idiot we all love). For me that was all because Naruto is about, well, Naruto, and a lot about the show has to be, you know, about him. Making him special is a necessity.

So yeah, while it makes sense that people wouldn’t be able to make taju kage bunshin, it makes no sense that someone with excellent chakra control and bullheaded determination like Sakura couldn’t do it. My take on Kage Bunshin is based on the academy level clones and their difference. They’re more a genjutsu than anything, they can’t take any hits whereas naruto’s kage bunshin can take some hits before disappearing. The better chakra control, the more corporeal the clone and the bigger chakra reserves (meaning, the more chakra gets put into the clone seeing as kage bunshin supposedly take half of your chakra) the more clones you canmake.

There’s also another aspect of the jutsu which is the whole memories (and chakra) come back to the user once its dispelled. To put it simply, it makes no fucking sense. Chakra just doesn’t magically travels the atmosphere back to the user without a conduit and for there to be a conduit, there has to be a thread linking the user to the clone, you feel me? Keeping that thread and extending it has got to take some control and I have no explanation as to why Naruto can do it when he’s told time and time again that he has terrible chakra control. The only way I can explain it without chucking it up to plothole/inconsistencies is that some things (like the rasengan and all the op moves Naruto has) requires chakra control and others (like medical ninjutsu and shit) requires more chakra finesse. Yeah, I dunno either.

My whole point in this fic, however, is going to be a fix-it for Sakura (and to some extent Tsunade and the other girlies). What if Kishimoto wasn’t a misogynistic bastard and actually followed through with female characterisation? You said Tsunade is a baddass bitch who takes shit from no one? You bet your ass that’s going to be 100% how she acts. You said Sakura can pick up tree walking on her first try? Oh, darling, you just get ready for what more she’ll be able to do.

So yea, this fic is an AU, things are going to be based on but ultimately different from cannon and I hope you guys are okay with that!

This is probably one of my last rants on this story, you guys! I feel like the more I write here, the less I’m being a good writer, you know? I don’t know! What do you guys think? Vote on the comments, please, if you like big rants or ir you’d rather read them on Tumblr or smth…

Hope you all have a lovely day!

Chapter 10: Okaeri

Notes:

Surprise!

Last chapter was shorter than usual and you guys have been wonderful, so I worked hard to get this out before my trip to Japan!

Quick warning for PTSD right at the beginning but this is actually the last warning that I’m going to put on this fic, be it for sexual content or blood/gore/panic attacks/PTSD. I don’t really believe in the whole constant trigger warning thingy everybody seems to be doing because I think it takes a lot out of our experience as a reader. That being said, I do understand there is a need for it so here it is. Last warning for anybody that might be triggered by reading those kind of things, unfortunately this story isn’t for you.

Enjoy :)

Sakura woke up in her bed.

For a moment she was so disoriented that her lungs constricted painfully and her heart sped up. She couldn’t move or breathe too loudly because what if she was attacked. She couldn’t remember how she got there. At all. But suddenly she had to get up and fight.

Sakura felt chakra moving through her muscles as she sprung out of bed and grabbed the kunai she always kept at her bedside table after her first mission as a chuunin. She immediately put her back to the wall and sank to a crouch to assess the situation and analyse the enemy. One heartbeat, two heartbeats.

There was no one there.

Slowly, as if coming out from underwater, she blinked away the haze of panic and sunk shakily to the ground. Her hands cradled her head where she felt sweat drenching her hair and only after a few deep, shuddering breaths she felt she could breathe again.

She didn’t know what had just happened, but she felt like she had been pummeled by that oto-nin in the Forest of Death all over again. She felt like shit, as Tenten would say.

Sakura dragged herself to the shower and contemplated how she had woken up in her bed. The ice cold water shocked her senses enough to drive back the panic she felt even further to the back of her mind where Inner neatly locked it away.

Tsunade-shishou must have asked someone to carry her home.

Waking up like that had shaken her up and Sakura could only be grateful no one had been there with her but she had to put it behind her. There were many new things happening in her life to which she had to give her full attention. Tsunade had mentioned something about starting with scrapes and Sakura wanted to feel excited.

From the women’s reaction to her focus and abilities, Sakura had impressed them. Really impressed them. The Hokage and one of the best med-nin in the continent. Sakura had done that.

After being belittled and left to the sidelines so many times during her short career, having their approval meant so much. Being the first one of the Rookie 9 to become a chuunin had felt good but it was so great to feel recognized by her hard work and she just knew she could do much more. She would show them, these two beautiful women who believed in her, she would show them just how much she could do.

-

Sakura was exhausted.

She had no other words to describe the feeling in her bones that made her drag her feet home every night long after the sun had set. Her days began at the crack of dawn and only ended when she had done everything Tsunade-shishou asked of her plus Lee’s workout routine—she had to keep improving her strength and speed, afterall.

Sakura only had time to meet Tenten and Lee about two times a week to train together and she only got to see Ino—who had healed nicely enough to go back to missions—about once a month for tea at their favourite place by the Hokage tower.

She hadn’t actually seen either of her parents for about a week now. She would always leave before they woke up and by the time she got home they were long asleep.

The past six months had been nothing but work and it was rough to keep up the pace.

Sakura entered her room quietly through the window, just like she had been doing for the past month after another fight with her parents about coming home late.

Ever since the mission in Wave her parents had shown themselves less inclined to accept her career of choice. Most of the time they were neutral about it but every so often a comment or another would slip by showing just exactly what they thought of her being a kunoichi.

They had hopes she would join the Genin Corps soon and start showing interest in the family business but every step Sakura took was one step away from what they wanted for her. Her dad had been hounding her for a while to take a vacation with her great aunt to the Flame Capitol to learn the trades of the business like he did when he was her age. It took some careful maneuvering and more complex evading techniques than she was expecting to escape his attempts.

Sakura jumped on her windowsill skillfully and immediately came face to face with both her parents sitting on her bed. They eyed her seriously through the glass and she had half a second of considering running away back to the training grounds before she resigned herself to the fight ahead of her.

They would only get madder if she ran.

“So this is why we never hear you come in.” Haruno Kizashi raised a half amused, half scorning eyebrow at her and Sakura felt the full weight of it. But it had nothing on her mother’s silent, impartial glance.

“What are you doing here?” Sakura glanced between the two of them before she noticed her bags were on the floor. Packed and ready to go.

“The better question is why weren’t you in your room, I believe.” Her dad’s voice was accusing and it immediately raised her hackles. “You were supposed to be in bed.”

“Kizashi,” her okaasan’s voice was strict as always. “We don’t have time for this, it’s late.”

Her father sighed but nodded his head in agreement. “We are leaving in the morning to visit the clan in Hinote no Shuto.”

Sakura blinked at them in confusion before realising they had packed her bags for her, assuming she would go without even consulting her.

“I can’t leave my training, otou-san.” Sakura frowned at him, fighting the impulse to cross her arms.

“This isn’t up for debate, Sakura.” His voice was serious and his expression closed off but what threw her off was the lack of endearment when using her name. Her dad always called her Sacchan.

Sakura stared silently at them both, horror downing on her when she realised what she had to do. Her parents didn’t understand. They didn’t get just how important it was to be the Hokage’s apprentice or just how much effort she was putting in being a kunoichi. They didn’t get what it meant to her.

And she was heading straight into another fight with them. The problem was she didn’t want that. Not really. Her righteous anger had left her a while ago, all the training she had been doing leaving no room for anything else but exhaustion.

She didn’t have it in her to fight with them. Yes, because she was tired of it, but mostly because she knew that nothing would come of it. She couldn’t change the way they saw her and she wouldn’t be persuaded to leave so that only left her with one option.

Sakura huffed a breath and relaxed her shoulders to show dejection. She rubbed her eyes before looking back at her parents.

“Fine, I’ll be ready tomorrow morning.” She looked them in the eye briefly before heading towards the bathroom. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

She took one last look at her parents.

Her mum’s blonde hair was as tidy as ever and her sensible nightgown as red as Sakuea’s old qipao dress. There were lines on her face that were accentuated by the frown between her brows and Sakura could tell she was surprised.

Her dad’s face held laugh lines but not one of them were strained. He wasn’t laughing like he usually was or even grinning at her and calling her his little Sacchan. His pink hair was messy and his pajamas untidy and he looked older than she’d ever seen him. The expression on his face was one she couldn’t put her finger on.

Sakura took a good look at them because she knew it would be the last time she saw them for quite a while.

She took her shower very slowly and checked and double checked her parents were asleep after putting her day clothes on. With careful movements that were made deliberately soundles, she unpacked the bags full of her civvies and started packing the things she would actually need.

Her two sets of uniforms, all her weapons, her cleaning instruments and camping gear. A few of her products and even fewer normal clothing. The last thing to go in was the old Team Seven portrait.

With a last glance around her childhood room, Sakura took a deep breath, grabbed her bag and climbed her windowsill yet again. She gently coached chakra into her feet so she could climb to the roof and rushed towards the only place she could find solace at the moment.

The moon was the only thing reflecting on the Memorial Stone and it was barely enough to let her see the names engraved on it. With a shuddering sigh, Sakura traced the characters with her fingertips and reminded herself why she was doing this.

She had to keep going.

She didn’t know how long she stood there but her internal clock told her it was close to dawn when she finally managed to come back to herself. At some point during the summer night it had started to rain and she was completely drenched and shaking from the cold.

Sakura didn’t know what to do now. How does one go about to rent an apartment? She couldn’t live in her parents home anymore, not if she wanted to keep being a kunoichi, but she had no idea what to do now.

She had some money from all the missions Tsunade sent her but what about today? Her parents would surely look around for her at Ino’s before giving up and leaving without her and even if they didn’t leave, she had to find some place to stay until she could get her feet under her again.

Fierce smiles and claps on the back that felt more like an elephant had chosen to sit on it crossed her mind.

Tsunade-sama would help her, right? She was her shishou. Sakura bit her lip worriedly before shaking herself off.

It was no use sitting around in the cold and wondering when she could just go for it and ask her in person. The worst she could do was say no and then Sakura would move on to someone else. She was sure she could guilt trip Kotetsu into paying a hotel for the week if it came down to it.

Sakura knew she could find her master in the Hokage tower. It had been a crazy day at the office and the mountain of paperwork on Tsunade’s desk had been taller than her.

When she got there, the whole building was deserted and the lights were out but she could hear light snoring coming from her shishou’s office. Sakura quieted her steps as she approached the open door but when she got there, Tsunade snapped her eyes open and looked straight at her.

The woman’s body was tightly coiled for a moment and Sakura made sure not to move a single muscle while recognition slowly bled into her fierce features. She figured she had triggered her instincts by sneaking closer and wasn’t looking forward at all to seeing the Hokage in attack mode.

“What are you doing here so late?” Tsunade scowled at her. “And with your bags?”

Sakura stared blankly at the diamond on the middle of the blonde’s forehead. She had no idea how to go about this.

“Where’s Shizune-senpai?” Sakura asked instead.

Tsunade raised an imperious eyebrow.

“She’s at the hospital but you’re not here to ask about Shizune.” She crossed her fingers in front of her and leaned her chin on top of them. “Now spill.”

Sakura was never one to disobey orders. So she did.

“I-I can’t stay with my parents anymore,” she blurted it out fast, like one continuous word, before taking a deep breath and calming herself. “I need a place to crash for a few days so I can figure things out. How does one even goes about renting an apartment here, shishou?”

Sakura stared earnestly at her master, trying to squash the feeling inside of her that this amazingly strong woman could fix anything but not quite managing. She didn’t like relying on someone like this, not after everything that’s happened, but she still couldn’t help feeling like Tsunade held the answers to all her problems, like she could snap her fingers and fix everything.

Tsunade looked intently at her, eyebrows furrowed and eyes glinting with something Sakura couldn’t recognize, for what felt like an eternity. The silence dragged on until Sakura started sweating and she was about to excuse herself and jump out of the window when Tsunade abruptly got up and moved around the desk.

“Come on.” She waved her hand impatiently and turned the lights off before leaving.

Sakura stood in the dark for a moment, her brain struggling to catch up. This wasn’t the reaction she was expecting.

“Did you knock your head, girl?” Tsunade yelled from outside. “Get a move on, I don’t have all night!”

“H-Hai!” Sakura scrambled to follow the woman down the hall. They went straight past the exit at the ground floor and continued towards the back of the tower.

There was a simple unassuming wooden door at the end of the hall and that’s where they went through. The corridor they entered was long and it lead them with a downwards incline. The only source of illumination were a few gentle lights fixed to the dark walls.

She had always wondered what secrets the Hokage Tower held but, somehow, seeing Tsunade stop and slap her hand to the wall and then the intricate seals that lighted up the hall still managed to surprise her.

It was like a veil had been lifted and instead of seeing the same endless corridor they had been, a cozy hall came to life right before her eyes.

She hadn’t even felt the chakra signature from the seal.

The hall held three doors, all of them without handles, and was nicely illuminated. Tsunade didn’t even stop before biting her finger to bring blood to the surface, she brought that hand to the centre of the dark wood and another seal activated.

“Tsunade-sama?” Sakura asked hesitantly as they entered another corridor, this one leading up.

Tsunade’s pigtails slapped across her back when she turned her head to glare quickly at Sakura.

“I already told you to call me shishou.” Her voice was emphatic but didn’t hold its usual fierceness. “I don’t want to hear another “sama” coming from your mouth ever again. Remember what I told you, girl, bow to no one.”

Sakura took in a sharp breath through her nose. It was kind of irritating having to be told that more than once and even more so due to the fact that she’d been told to follow blindly behind Tsunade.

Normally, she would let it go. This was her Hokage after all, if she told Sakura to jump the only possible response she could have was to ask how high. Years and years learning and then following the Shinobi Guidebook had taught her to trust the system. Follow orders without questioning, do what’s asked of you and trust your Hokage.

Tsunade had been teaching her differently, though. She didn’t value rules like Sakura did. She didn’t care for deference and actively hated pushovers that did whatever they were told by their superiors no questions asked. Tsunade did what she thought was right.

And she wanted Sakura to be like that, apparently. She wanted Sakura to stand up to herself, to keep her chin up and speak her mind. To be more like Inner. So it was actually pretty easy for Sakura to let her annoyance be known.

“Shishou,” she said firmly just as they entered a spacious foyer. “Where the fuck are we going?”

Tsunade barked a laugh and finally turned to look at Sakura, something like pride shining in her eyes. She put both her hands on Sakura’s shoulders and shook her a little.

“You’re staying with me from now on, brat. We just went through the secret passageway that leads the Tower to the Senju estate.”

Sakura gaped at her. “W-what? I can’t possibly—“

“It’s not unusual for an apprentice to live with their masters.” Tsunade shrugged and despite the magnitude of her words, the thing that shook Sakura to the core was the uncertainty behind them. “That is if you want to, of course. You can leave when you find a place to stay if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No!” Sakura almost shouted. “I-I want to live here… with you, shishou.”

She was certain by how warm her cheeks felt that she was blushing horribly but it didn’t really matter when Tsunade beamed at her.

“Okaeri, Sakura.”

Sakura’s face felt like it would split in half by how big the smile on her face was.

“Tadaima, shishou.”

-

 

 

Notes:

Yooo, author’s rant is back before it even left by popular demand haha You guys, it makes me so happy to know you enjoy this because I loooove writing it.

Some points to consider from now on: There’s gonna be many time skips. This comes from the fact that so far, you guys have only seen the introduction of this fic. To be completely honest, I haven’t even gotten to writing the part where I look and go okay this is it. You guys think I named this Bad Idea ™ out of jest but I shit you not, I’m fucked.

So yeah, the next few chapters will be a healthy mix of time skips and continuous storytelling with a few flashbacks sprinkled on top. And that’s because, to be honest, we all know what happened during the years Naruto was away. Sakura trained and she trained hard. This aspect of the story won’t be much different from canon.

Oh yea! Almost forgot to say, the time jump between the orginal and Shippuden will be longer than in canon here. Not sure just how much longer, so far in my drafts it’s about four years until Naruto comes back. That’ll make Sakura almost 18 bc it’s my headcanon that Sakura is a bit older than her peers.

About Sakura running from home and the situation with her parents, well, I’m sure you’ve seen it coming. While in canon we get almost nothing about Sakura’s civilian background and I tried to explore that a bit here, it won’t have much ‘importance’ in the coming chapters.

Did you guys just realise I made up a Land of Fire capitol? Bc I kinda did. It just really bothered me that we never knew where the Fire Daimyō lives and I read somewhere that it would make sense to have it far away from Konoha, you know, not to have the two most important figures of the country close to each other in case of an attack so I kind of went with it. Hinote no Shuto (which literally means Flame Capitol according to google, if you didn’t catch on to that) is where the Fire Daimyō and his besties live.

What about Tora, you ask, and the fact that it escapes to Konoha from the daimyō’s wife? Well, it is my personal headcanon that while the fire palace would be in the capitol, they’d still have lots of estates thrown around the land of fire. Fire daimyō’s wife is always nearby because of the weather, ya’ll. just go with it.

Thank you so much for everyone who reviewed, you guys always make me so damn happy, I can’t even describe it!! This might be the last update in a while because,as you guys know, I’m taking a short trip to Japan before moving back to my country and things have been/will be insane. However, be on the lookout for a June update!

The most important part of this rant: We officially hit 10 chapters and I wanted to give something to you guys for being so wonderful to me. So, on top of this kind of double update, I decided to do a drabble lottery!! Wooo!

The conditions for applying are: You have to have reviewed on all the chapters I posted so far and you have to comment on this one letting me know your favourite part of the story OR your favourite kakasaku trope. I will give you guys until the next update to submit and I will draw up three random names which I will let you know on my next rant. These three peeps will then send me their prompts hihi

If you didn’t review on all the chapters already and still want to participate, that’s totally fine I get sometimes we just don’t have the time to review and I’m sure there are still some people who are just now finding the story! So yeah, it doesn’t matter if you reviewed when the chapters were released or just now, as long as I see your name (that’s also for guest users) in all the chapters and the submitting review on this chapter, you’ll be part of the draw!

See you soon xx

Chapter 11: The Real Beginning

Living with Tsunade was… odd.

She wasn’t a bad person to live with, honestly. She was barely home most of the time, as was Sakura, but it was the little things that kind of freaked Sakura out. It was the way she learned how the blonde talked slowly when she first woke up and hadn’t had coffee yet or how she always liked to sit on the corner of the sofa or even how she fixed her hair only after she had breakfast.

It was strange seeing her Hokage who had always been this imposing, untouchable figure, become this woman who was no less intimidating or fierce but so much more human.

Sakura didn’t have much time to contemplate this drastic change in perspective, though. Tsunade had buried her completely in hospital work. She had been doing rounds all day long, healing scrapes and learning to mend broken bones. She had been promoted as Tsunade’s assistant during surgery but while those were always interesting, they were few and far between.

She hadn’t been to a single mission outside the village for almost three weeks and the only physical training she managed to squeeze in was her nightly routine of exhausting herself to sleep, only now her books where always on genjutsu, and Lee’s workout regime. She hadn’t trained with Tenten and Lee in over a week and they were all in the village.

She got up early to do her laps around the village and rounded back to the Senju Estate to do the rest of her workout. The property was installed on the right side of the Hokage Mountain and it was gigantic. There were many training grounds on the backyard that Sakura took full advantage off.

By the time she got back to her room—that was equally large and traditional—Sakura was sweating but nowhere near getting the itch under her skin taken care of. She needed to do something.

 

The hospital was buzzing that morning. Tsunade was performing a heart surgery never done before that afternoon and they were all expected there bright and early to prep for it.

“Haruno!” An annoying voice called from down the hall and Sakura fought back a sigh.

Momoe Satsuki was the chief nurse and an ambitious kunoichi. She was still a genin in her twenties, sure, but she had managed to climb the hospital ladder faster than anyone Sakura had ever seen. Satsuki would never be considered a good combat medic nin, but her word was law at the hospital.

Tsunade hated her, just like Sakura did, but even she couldn’t deny how efficient her role on Konoha’s General was.

“Hey! Did you hear me? I need you to do something for me.” Satsuki’s bland face stared up at Sakura with a frown.

“What do you need, Momoe-san? I’m supposed to help Tsunade-shishou prep.” Sakura gave the woman a polite smile, already prepared to make an excuse and leave.

She took a step past the plump woman that was blocking her path but stopped when she felt a pudgy hand grip her wrist firmly.

“I don’t like your attitude, Haruno.” Sayuri said with a strained smile on her face. “While you’re in my hospital, you will do as I say and be respectful towards your superiors.”

Sakura didn’t take her eyes off the hand that was still holding on to her. The past three weeks of no action and the months of suffering through this hag’s self-righteousness suddenly exploded in white hot anger inside Sakura. The same sharp calmness she felt on the battlefield descended upon her and before she knew it, Sakura was leaning closer to the woman.

Inner brought forth the same fierceness she used on her enemies and, clad in a blanket of darkness and a mask of danger, raised her eyes to finally meet Satsuki’s. The woman’s dark green eyes were wide in fear as Sakura slowly peeled her hand out of her arm. She used the tiniest amount of chakra when she touched her pinkie and watched in satisfaction when she cried out in pain.

“Don’t ever touch me again.” Her voice was dark and low and flashes of monsters with too wide grins kept going on the back of her mind.

Sakura left Satsuki a shaking mess on the floor, not bothering to look back or hide. She was done. She was fucking done.

“I’m not doing this anymore.” She barged into Tsunade’s office at the hospital without knocking and found her and Shizune hunched over some papers. She was marginally calmer in that she had managed to push the darkness back, but nervous energy still cursed through her bloodstream.

“Not doing… what?” Shizune asked.

“This whole hospital thing!” Sakura threw her hands in the air and started pacing. “What am I even doing? Cleaning bedpans and healing easy injuries, what is it doing for me? Absolutely nothing, that’s what!”

“You don’t clean bedpans,” Tsunade said.

“I might as well for all the useful things I’m doing here!”

“Working at the hospital is useful, Sakura-chan,” Shizune chastised her and Sakura had to fight very hard not to jump at the girl’s throat for her condescending tone. “You are bettering your medical skills and helping others in here. If you ever want to take on my mantle and then Tsunade-sama’s you also need to know how the hospital works.”

Sakura took a few deep breaths before turning her head away from her senpai to look at Tsunade. She knew she was being rude but she had reached her breaking point.

“You told me you would train me in everything you know. You haven’t taught me anything new since that first lesson on augmenting muscle force.” Sakura stared unblinkingly at her shishou’s golden eyes. She wouldn’t back down on this. “I get you have a lot of work to do and I’m fine with learning a few things on my own but I barely have any time left for it!”

“You’re learning how to lead here, kid.” Tsunade didn’t offer anything else but Sakura had an answer for that.

“I’m a chunnin, I can lead on the field.” She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll be more useful out there than here, at this rate. You know, maybe there’s something wrong with the Medical Program, Shishou. It doesn’t make sense to keep combat medics at the hospital all the time, it’s why your proposal was shut down by Sandaime-sama.” She felt like she had crossed the line with that one but Tsunade just stared at her for a moment and when Shizune went to protest she raised a hand to silence her. Sakura took it as her cue to use the big guns. “I won’t be able to catch up to Naruto at this rate, Shishou. I need to be ready to fight by his side when he comes back, not to stay back at the hospital where it’s safe. It’s not where I belong. At least not yet.”

There was a beat before Tsunade grinned at her. It was more a snarl than a grin, really, full of sharp annoyance and fierce pride but it was still a grin. Sorta.

“I’m turning you into a little shit, aren’t I?” She barked a laugh. “A week, girl.”

“What?” Sakura said through her smile.

“I’ll take a week off to give you only combat training. That first week will be only theory training and then we’ll settle a schedule where you’ll take missions while I can’t train with you and we’ll focus on your training when we’re both available.”

“Tsunade-sama!” Shizune’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “You can’t leave the Hokage post for a week!”

“I can do it in three days.” Sakura rushed to say.

“You can half your learning time now, kid, but I can still only teach one thing at once.” Tsunade raised her eyebrow at her.

“Not if your clone teaches mine.” Sakura countered. “You have enough chakra for that.”

Tsunade barked another laugh. “Little shit is right. Let’s go.”

She got up and tossed her white coat on the desk before moving around it to grab Sakura’s head with one hand.

“Tsunade-sama, the surgery!” Shizune cried out.

“Reschedule it for next week!” Tsunade yelled over her shoulder. “We need more time to go over the final details and I have a sudden urge to kick a certain pinky’s ass.”

-

Sakura thought her brain was about to explode. Tsunade had given her so many new and wonderful information on medical ninjutsu and chakra control—after beating her soundly, of course—that a whole different world had opened itself up for analysis. Not to mention the fact that she had learned the theory behind all of her shishou’s signature jutsu including the Byakugou seal and how to get a start on that.

 

The Strength of a Hundred Seal was probably one of the most complex and amazing technique Sakura had ever heard of. The thought that soon her training would be directed towards that was enough to make her heart pound and blood rush.

 

Even if her head did feel like there was a tiny Tsunade inside it, constantly punching her brain.

 

She trudged her way back home with dragging feet that seemed clumsy enough to make fear of falling a reality. Tsunade had left her a couple of hours ago when the sun began to set but she stayed behind at the Senju training grounds to practice some of the basics. All she’d gotten for her efforts was a sprained wrist so far.

 

Sakura had done exactly like her shishou had instructed and tried to punch the boulder into smithereens like demonstrated but two hours later and she was feeling more discouraged than ever.

 

She went to bed that night with a weight on her chest, thinking how she had felt so confident she could do this and how wrong she’d been.

 

However, there was nothing like a healthy dose of night terror to shake the glum out of a person. Dreams vivid enough in a way that was only possible because they were actually memories plagued her night. Her own screams woke her up and she was briefly grateful that Tsunade apparently had already left for the Tower before she was on her feet.

 

Sakura didn’t bother with breakfast or even changing out of her pyjamas, she simply marched outside to the training ground in her backyard and faced one of the boulders there. Sasuke was still out there with Orochimaru. Naruto was unreachable. And all night she’d been stuck in flashes of her friends falling in front of her and blood, so much blood.

 

She would master that technique today. She couldn’t afford not to.

 

With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and coached her chakra towards her right fist. A sudden bout of inspiration struck her and she used her left hand to make the tiger seal to help her focus. Keeping her flow steady, she guided as much as she could towards her knuckles and pulled her fist back.

 

She let go of the breath she was holding the same time she left her fist fly, still not opening her eyes, and heard the deafening crack that ensued.

 

Sakura opened one eye warily to look at the boulder and whooped in celebration. There was a large crater in the boulder before her, the cracks a spidery web reaching the edges of it. She hadn’t managed to pulverize it like her shishou but it was still something. If that boulder had been a person, she would have done some serious damage.

 

And she loved it.

 

-

 

It was a week later that Tsunade managed to escape the office long enough to join her for an early morning training session. The two of them had been sparring for a while and Tsunade had seemed proud of Sakura, even if she hadn’t explicitly told her so.

 

Sakura knew her shishou was pleased by how her grin was that much fiercer and her eyes that much sharper. She knew because she realised Tsunade kept increasing the intensity and speed behind her hits to see just how much Sakura could take, like she was testing her but also like she was rewarding her.

 

Every time Sakura managed to evade or successfully block a blow that would have broken someone else’s bones, Tsunade’s smile grew. When Sakura finally managed to switch to the offensive for the first time ever while sparring with her shishou, she felt a rush like none other.

 

Tsunade dodged easily from her well-aimed punch, but the tree behind her had been completely obliterated. She hadn’t actually managed to do it to the boulder yet, but she was getting there. She knew she was and it was downright exciting to see the progress in herself.

 

“Alright!” Tsunade clapped her hands together and snorted. “That’s enough for a pre-workout don’t you think?”

 

Sakura would have scoffed but she was too busy falling to the floor in a heap. Every muscle in her body ached and she was pretty sure she couldn’t get any wetter if she jumped in a river. Sweat ran into her eyes making them sting and the hair that had escaped her usual braid was plastered to her forehead because of it. At that moment, tired was an understatement.

 

“Get up, brat, we’re not finished.” Tsunade’s shadow fell on Sakura as she leaned her hands on her hips and bended a little at the waist to look at her. “Or are you? I have more to do than sit around and watch you pant, girl.”

 

That was enough incentive for Sakura to gather a breath and gasp out, “No!” Tsunade raised an eyebrow at her and she was sure she would have blushed if her cheeks hadn’t already been flushed from the exercise. “I can keep going, just give me a few seconds.”

 

Tsunade rolled her eyes but to Sakura’s surprise, she sat down next to her and leaned back on her hands to tilt her face towards the first rays of sun, like she was soaking up its warmth. A few minutes went by in silence and Sakura had calmed her heartbeat enough to get up and try again but Tsunade cut her off before she could.

 

“Did you mean what you said?” She asked, her tone subdued in a way that Sakura had never heard before. She didn’t have to ask what Tsunade meant because she continued shortly after a heavy pause. “Do you really think there’s something wrong with the Medical Program? Shizune said you were just being ungrateful and inpatient like the usual teenager but I don’t think you’re the type of girl to run from work like that.”

 

Sakura blinked at her. Her shishou was sitting next to her after finally finding some time to spar and was actually asking for her opinion on official matters. She was stunned to say the least.

 

It was only after careful consideration of her words that Sakura answered.

 

“I think when you introduced it here you did the best you could considering the shitty situation Konoha was facing. But,” Sakura took a deep breath and hoped she wasn’t overstepping her boundaries by continuing, “things are not like they were anymore. The hospital is well stablished and staffed, the people there can handle the normal influx and with you and Shizune-senpai around, the possibilities of anyone dying from an injury while at the village is practically null.”

 

Sakura paused to let Tsunade take over but when she looked at her, her amber eyes were still watching the tree tops in silent consideration, so she decided to keep going.

 

“The problem right now is that there aren’t enough medics out there because becoming a medic is so time consuming and, frankly, bureaucratic that the only ones who end up doing it are ninja who later on can’t keep up on the field. It’s almost field career suicide.” Sakura bit her lip. “During the disaster that was my first chunin mission there was this Anbu guy at Kakashi-san’s team. His name was Fox, or at least his codename was, and he could do some basic medical ninjutsu. Enough to give Ino a fighting chance.”

 

It was quiet for a while, the only sounds in the clearing of a few distant birds and the wind rustling the leaves and Sakura was afraid she had said too much but then Tsunade was speaking again, her voice uncharacteristically soft, like she was still lost in whatever thoughts plagued her mind.

 

“Some Anbu who have better chakra control sometimes take it upon themselves to learn the basics.”

 

She still wasn’t looking her way but Sakura nodded anyways before bringing her gaze to where Tsunade’s hadn’t left since the beginning of the conversation.

 

“Maybe what we need out there isn’t fully trained medics. Maybe what we need for now are those that have enough control to know how to do patch up jobs. Emergency field solutions until they can get somewhere safe.” Sakura untied her hitae-ate and scratched at the healed scar that bisected her right eyebrow, courtesy of that Kusa ninja from her first mission as a leader. “I’m sure some of them will feel much more inclined to work in the hospital after they’ve experienced the field one too many times.”

 

Sakura forced her fingers from scratching anymore at the scar and brought them to her lap to fiddle with the ends of her headband. Every time she thought back to that mission it itched as if a reminder of what could have happened. The wound on her shoulder had been completely healed by that nurse but Sakura had brushed her off before she could heal any of her scratches. The tiny wound across her eyebrow had been enough to make blood fall on her eyes but had long since clotted and Sakura had only remembered it again when she had stood beneath her shower head. It was now a constant reminder for Sakura of what had happened.

 

The silence had stretched on for a little too long when Sakura realised her shishou was looking at her, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed.

 

“You’re way too smart for so early in the morning, brat.” Tsunade continued looking at her before scoffing and rolling her eyes. “And you were right about why the old man refused to follow my advice on having a medic on each team.” Tsunade pursed her lips before saying in a low voice, “Imagine all the deaths that could have been avoided if you had been there with that way of thinking.”

 

Sakura felt warmth in her chest at the blonde’s words but acknowledged the compliment with only a faint smile before responding.

 

“Konoha wasn’t ready for that, Shishou. The hospital was a disgrace and the medics clueless, they needed your guidance to grow to how they are now. The only reason we can think about field solutions now is because of you, really.”

 

Tsunade’s eyes widened minutely before she turned towards Sakura.

 

“Flattery won’t get you out of another round, girl.”

 

Sakura knew it was Tsunade’s way of avoiding the sentimental turn their conversation had taken but didn’t take offense to it. She could read now the pride in her shishou’s eyes and the mirth in her scowls and she was glad they’d shared that talk even if she could barely walk throughout the rest of the day.

 

-

 

 

Notes:

Hey, babes! Sorry for the unexpectedly long wait for this chapter! I hope you liked it as much as I did <3 There shouldn´t be another long wait like this one because I´m going back to uni which means going back to having a routine and things won´t be as crazy anymore lol Thank you all so much for reviewing, I really cherish each word from y´all

AND NOW FOR THE MOST EXCITING PART!

THE WINNER OF THE RAFFLE IS.... oh_jeez!!!!!!! Thank you so much for commenting on every single one of my chapters, specially when sometimes you´d do it twice lol You can send me your prompt as a review on this chapter or as an ask on Tumblr (s-scorpiusmlfy). Thank you again <3

Now, you guys, I have to confess something... While I was away I ended up writing a little something... It´s supposed to be the first chapter of a spin off for this story that just wouldn´t leave my head and I just had to write it but now I kind of don´t want to write it anymore so it´s just a really confusing AU one-shot thingy???? Should I ever shape it up to let it see the light of day or should I just keep it to myself?

See you soon ;)

Chapter 12: Shu'unen

Sakura sat down on the foyer of the Senju house to put on her boots and blew a piece of her hair away from her face as it fell from its usual tight braid. It had been almost a year ago that Ino had first put it there before the ambush and every day since, Sakura had religiously put it back up when getting ready for the day.

 

It had become a ritual of sorts, almost like tracing the characters on the memorial stone with her eyes. Her hair would stay up in that braid and grow long until she had enough skills to back it up. Only then she would let it down.

 

With a last check to make sure she had all her weapons in place, she left the house through the side entrance that led into the Hokage Tower. The place was buzzling this time of day, with plenty of influx of ninja getting back from their missions before sundown but no one paid her any particular attention as she walked the hallways.

 

These walls had become like a second home for Sakura over the course of the last six months. The day after that training session where Tsunade had asked her opinion on the Medical Program, during breakfast, her shishou had implied that she would appreciate an extra hand at the office. At first Sakura was reluctantly compliant, following through Tsunade’s barely veiled order only because she was her Hokage, but after a while, working at the office had proven to be a good way to keep her mind sharp.

 

After the disaster that working at the hospital had turned out to be, Tsunade hadn’t really pressured Sakura on taking any kind of formal shifts at the office, only calling for her when necessary. Most of the time, it was Sakura who volunteered to be next to her shishou, be it to help sign paperwork, assign the fitting shinobi for a certain mission or just simply work on her own studies beside her.

 

It was always great to have her shishou by her side when she was testing out a particularly tricky genjutsu.

 

Sakura could say she spent a lot of her time inside those walls, even as she kept an intense training regime and took many missions outside the village. Just because she was working against the clock on improving herself, didn’t mean the village wasn’t still in a short supply of available ninja.

 

Gradually, over the weeks and months that Tsunade had taken up the Hokage mantle, their living room had become a second office of sorts, paperwork strewn across the coffee table and all sorts of scrolls pilled up around it. During the night, Sakura had taken the habit of sitting with her shishou around the low table to either study or help her finish her work while her clone went outside to see how far she could stretch her limits.

 

Sakura had found herself knowing more about her village and the intricacies of it than she ever hoped for. She’d already known a lot about the trades done in Konoha on the civilian side because of her training as a Haruno but working with Tsunade had shown her so much more. She’d learned about which treaties were made and dissolved and how to navigate around shinobi politics but perhaps the most important thing she’d learned so far was how Konoha’s past wasn’t as squeaky clean as she’d pegged it to be.

 

Having access to basically everything the Hokage did wasn’t always a blessing and it was hard to come to terms with the fact that Konoha had some very shady shadows in its past, especially with how much of that shadiness had involved the elders in some way.

 

Sakura had come to hate Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu for a lot of reasons. At first, she was just mildly annoyed with them for all the disapproving glances they sent her way whenever Tsunade asked her to stay behind for a meeting with them but it was more than that. The Council claimed to be there to ensure the Hokage made the right decisions concerning the village but it was extremely counterproductive to have two people who hadn’t known field work for over three decades to stand against the Hokage at every turn.

 

They seemed to hate Tsunade, often implying how young and inadequate she was for the role and contradicting her on almost everything. Once, Sakura had even seen them belittle her in front of some of the daimyo’s correspondent. She had no idea why they had suggested her for the post if they wouldn’t stand by her.

 

Perhaps the thing that made her the most apprehensive about Konoha and the Council, however, was Shimura Danzou. She knew the elder had gone behind the Sandaime’s back and had been forcibly removed from the Council about a decade ago for his efforts, but the man always seemed to be just around the corner, giving his input to the Council who, to Sakura’s disbelief, sometimes agreed with him. She thought that claiming he was an elder wasn’t reason enough not to have put him in jail for going against the Hokage.

 

But even if they didn’t always see eye to eye, all three of them seemed to agree that Sakura shouldn’t be Tsunade’s apprentice. They always had something to say about her. Sometimes it was that she was too young for Tsunade to share so much of her work with and that she should be taking more missions instead of learning the ropes of the Tower. Other times it was that she was too inexperienced and lacking to be groomed as the Senju heir. It didn’t matter what she did, they were always complaining about her and she knew it was because she was civilian borne.

 

Sakura frowned a bit at herself for having let her mood deter because of her thoughts. There was absolutely nothing she could do about the elders but play her carefully crafted game of deafness and polite smiles that her political training had provided and Inner made possible. It was no use dwelling on them any longer, she had a date with Ino and she couldn’t be late.

 

Sakura stopped on her tracks.

 

She knew it would happen before it did. Had felt the electric whiteness of his chakra the moment he entered the building. Still, it kind of felt like a punch to the gut to see Kakashi’s white mop of hair over the top of the other ninja’s heads. Just the sight of him, orange book held in front of his face and one hand buried deep into a pocket, was enough to send a torrent of emotions through her system.

 

Lately, it was safe to say that emotions weren’t something Sakura had had any pleasure in dealing with. To push herself harder like she’d been doing, there had to be little space for any kind of feeling but determination and focus. The thing was, this wasn’t how Sakura worked.

 

She’d always been very emotional and the frustration she’d been feeling over the past few months at herself had only kept growing every time she threw up after a particularly vicious mission or woke up in a fit of nightmares or even when she cried because of a sudden flashback during the night.

 

The same confusing mix of sadness, frustration and anger went through her when she saw Kakashi and she almost pretended not to have seen him and continued on her way, but… Next week would be the anniversary of Naruto leaving the village.

 

It didn’t matter that she was angry at herself at feeling so nostalgic or sad. It didn’t matter that she was supposed to have heeded the man’s subtle tells and gotten rid of any sentimentality involving Hatake Kakashi. It didn’t matter that she thought he was a fucking idiot to just walk around the village without ever acknowledging her. None of it mattered because Kakashi had been team 7 at the end of the day.

 

“Kakashi-san!” She turned around to call him when he passed her by before she could overthink it.

 

Sakura saw him hesitate in turning around. She was sure many wouldn’t have noticed it, the tiniest of hesitation between one step and the other before he stopped and turned his head and torso slightly to look at her.

 

“Yo.” His eyes closed in a smile hidden by his mask.

 

The sight of it rankled on Sakura’s anger but she pushed it down and forced herself to step closer to him so that she could talk without attracting the attention of the other ninja. He still didn’t turn to look at her.

 

“It’s been almost a year since Naruto left Konoha.” Sakura knew he was the type to play in subterfuge and double meaning words but she couldn’t care less. During missions it had become easy to analyse the way a target worked and adapt her approach accordingly but for the life of her, Sakura couldn’t bring that training to deal with him at that moment. For a second, he was Kakashi-sensei and she was twelve once again and for some reason, she couldn’t remember how to be the calculating chunin she’d become in the past year.

 

“Ah, really?” Kakashi scratched at his covered cheek and turned towards her.

 

If one looked, they would think the two of them were having a friendly conversation now that he had turned to look at her, but Sakura knew better. He still had his book out and was hiding behind his smiles and carefree tone but his feet had spread just a hairsbreadth more than usual for a man his size, like he was strengthening his base to defend himself. Or to bolt.

 

“Yes, really,” Sakura managed to say with the barest hint of sarcasm to her voice. “Do you want to meet up at Ichiraku sometime?”

 

“Maa.” Kakashi’s eyes strained more around the corners as he kept up the infuriating smile of his. “I’m on my way to a debriefing for a mission that doesn’t really have an estimated length, unfortunately. Maybe when I get back?”

 

With that, he turned to walk away from her.

 

Sakura stared at his back feeling at once angry and sad. She couldn’t contain the roll of emotion on her stomach so intense it made her sick. She hated him then. Truly loathed him and the last nostalgic image of Kakashi-sensei she had went up in flames by how hurt she felt.

 

“Ah, by the way.” He turned his head back to look at her. “Congrats on your medical training. Ja.” He raised a hand in goodbye but Sakura wasn’t looking anymore.

 

With a determined tilt to her chin, she swallowed until her stomach settled, turned on one leg and left the tower without glancing back.

 

With a little help from Inner, she locked away all the hurt and sadness and anger into a tiny box she had on the back of her mind and continued on her way to meet Ino. The blonde had practically forced Sakura into agreeing to go out with her today, something about not seeing each other for the past month.

 

Sakura couldn’t help it, though. Her training was taking up so much of her time that she barely had enough hours in the day to rest let alone have a social life. Her meetings with Lee and Tenten had also cooled down to practically twice a month now that they all had turned chunin and had missions outside of the village with Team Guy more often. Sakura had remained close to them both but she didn’t have much space in her life for anything other than training partners. Training partners who happened to be her friends, sure, but their interactions had been restricted to the training grounds.

 

Ino appeared to be the exception.

 

She had forced her way into Sakura’s life over and over again during the course of the year, making sure she didn’t bury herself completely in her training. Ino dragged her off for lunch when Sakura had skipped it because of how concentrated she was on her chakra, prattling off about who was dating who and how scandalous it was because he was twenty years older than her.

 

She stopped by to paint Sakura’s nails dark red like her shishou’s and watch a corny chick flick when Sakura had planned to work in the Senju training grounds until she collapsed, or she declared Sakura’s day off and forced her to head to the salon to get her double ends taken care of.

 

Once, after a particular mission that had taken Sakura a couple of weeks to complete, Ino had knocked on her door, entered without saying a word and proceeded to make her dinner. Ino had always been better at cooking than Sakura—it really wasn’t that hard, to be honest—and she didn’t have the heart to complain because Tsunade surely wouldn’t be back from the office anytime soon and she needed something to keep her from spiralling down the darkness that had taken place inside of her.

 

Needless to say, that had been a hard mission. Sakura and another girl had been the only ones to make it back home.

 

Now, Ino sat waiting impatiently at the street tables of a new teahouse near the Yamanaka’s flower shop. It was a little too close to the civilian market for Sakura’s comfort, but it had been over a month since she’d seen her best friend and she had missed her. So Sakura powered through any fear of running into her parents and made her way towards the table.

 

“I thought you’d never get here.” Ino crossed her arms petulantly and pouted at Sakura. “You’re fifteen minutes late, you know?”

 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Sakura shrugged. “I had a run in with someone on the way here.”

 

Ino narrowed her eyes at her and Sakura fought a frown. Having a Yamanaka’s pupilless eyes analysing you like that was unnerving, even after all the years Sakura had been Ino’s friends.

 

“It was Kakashi-sensei, wasn’t it?”

 

Sakura’s eyes widened.

 

“How the fuck did you figure it out?” Sakura exhaled a small huff of amusement and shook her head.

 

“What did he do now?” Ino demanded, not answering her question. Sakura had no idea how she figured it out so fast, but didn’t find it as surprising as she should. Ino always had a sixth sense for things like that and Sakura didn’t question her on that anymore.

 

“Nothing,” Sakura sighed. “He didn’t do anything.”

 

“Ah, I get it now.” Sakura had no doubt that she did get the full scope of the situation with just those short words. “It’s really no surprise, Sakura-chan. That man has some serious emotional issues. No one stays in Anbu as long as he did and comes out of it without some baggage.”

 

“How long did he stay in Anbu?” Sakura asked after they ordered. “And just how do you know that?”

 

“About ten years,” Ino said. Sakura merely raised an eyebrow at her and a sheepish look crossed her face. “I overheard Daddy talking to Shikaku-ojisan once.”

 

Sakura nodded pensively. If Kakashi had stayed in Anbu for that long then a lot of things made much more sense. His habit of emotionally distancing himself from everyone around him, hiding like he did today behind cheery smiles and a bright book was suddenly clear to her.

 

Sakura had always wondered what happened to his team. Usually, the jounin in the village still kept in touch with their genin team but the closest things to a friend that she ever saw interacting with Kakashi had been Guy-sensei. Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei had been present when she went to find him at the tea house one afternoon after waiting hours for him to show up to train them but even then, he had looked distant.

 

The only possible explanation for his team not being around was that they were… gone, and just the thought of that made her chest constrict painfully. The hours she spent thinking her best friend was dead were probably the worst in her life, she couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

 

The realisation that Kakashi had lost not one team but two made her want to cry. It was stupid to feel so compassionate about him when he barely took the time to notice she wasn’t even in the Medical Program anymore but Sakura thought she understood him a little better now. When you had lost people like that, pushing others away seemed like a safe choice. She got that and couldn’t really resent him for it.

 

A bit of the anger she’d felt for him was chipped away by the thought that maybe he was suffering just as much as her but, ultimately, it made no difference.

 

Sakura was done reaching out to someone who didn’t want her company, be it Kakashi or Sasuke-kun. She had her own problems to deal with now and no space in her life for anyone else’s bullshit. Even if they were justified.

 

“He’s back in Anbu,” Sakura murmured, the tiniest bit of worry lodging itself on her chest. “Or at least semi-reinstated. Most of his missions nowadays are solo S-Ranks but sometimes he gets assigned a few from Anbu or with a group of other jounin. To boost morale or something.”

 

“I’m guessing having the famous Copy Nin on your team can make you feel invincible, right?” Ino shrugged. “He’s famous around the village, it makes sense.”

 

Sakura sighed and nodded. This train of thought left her feeling a bit depressed, the worry she felt for the man seemed somewhat unjustified in her head. They had absolutely nothing to do with one another anymore, she shouldn’t feel worried about him because it wasn’t any of her business anymore. And that was just fine with her.

 

She perked up a bit when their food arrived.

 

“This is really good,” she moaned around her mochi, Ino echoing her sentiment. “I guess I can see now why you chose a place so close to the civvie market.”

 

Ino paused, her tea halfway to her lips and looked at Sakura. Her big blue eyes poked a hole in Sakura’s defences and she frowned.

 

“I thought you guys kept in contact through letters.”

 

Sakura sighed. Throughout the six months since she’d left home, her parents had sent her exactly two letters. One to tell her how disappointed they were with her and making it clear she would have none of the perks she used to have from being a Haruno. It wasn’t exactly a disownment, that would never happen because she was their only heir and if something happened to her otousan’s cousin, she would be expected to take her dad’s place when he died, but it was close.

 

The other letter had come after the annual meeting at the Haruno estate in Kumo. Apparently, Tachibana had been there and had asked for her. The letter ordered her to keep up appearances with the two brothers and for her to keep their ‘disagreement’ to herself if they ever contacted her.

 

It hurt that they hadn’t made any effort to seek her out. Her chest ached just thinking of it but Sakura hadn’t really dwelled on it much over the past months. She’d been so busy with her work and training that there just wasn’t time for her to feel sad. Tsunade and Shizune had filled the void her parents had left better than they ever could, constantly challenging her in her shishou’s case and encouraging in her senpai’s.

 

She had a home to come back to thanks to Tsunade and all the support she never thought she needed before. Staying with people who encouraged her to be a better ninja everyday was doing wonders to her self-esteem and drive as a kunoichi.

 

Tsunade had upped the intensity of her training gradually over the last year and, looking back, Sakura took a moment to be amazed at how much she had managed to accomplish. The Hokage usually trained her late into the night after working at the Tower or at the crack of dawn before Shizune tracked her down to force her into the mountain of paperwork she always seemed to have.

 

She had managed to master her shishou’s famous chakra enhanced strength after a lot of broken bones and collapses and was cultivating her seal like a mother would a child. Tsunade had taught her how to use the genjutsu she used on herself to keep her skin smooth and young and told her about how much easier it was to go undercover if she had it. She also had begun overseeing much of Sakura’s experiments with genjutsu.

 

However, their training had gotten more specific towards mission procedures and skills that could be helpful on the field. When Tsunade realised that although she had all the skills of a medic-nin, Sakura wouldn’t conform to her rules, the first thing she taught Sakura was how to mask her chakra.

 

“The trick isn’t to put a cloak on it and try to snuff it out, Sakura,” Shishou had said. “The trick is to feel your environment. If there are birds, bugs or any kind of animal nearby, have a feel of their chakra. See it in your mind’s eye how much of it there is, the wavelength they operate. Then all you need to do is match yours to how theirs feel. Normal shinobi probably wouldn’t notice you if you cloaked it like other people do.” She smiled a fierce, dangerous smile that almost reminded Sakura of her nightmares. “But this is how you fool the elite.”

 

Sakura’s natural affinity with genjutsu had helped her a lot in those training sessions and now she made a habit of constantly having a great part of her chakra reserves cloaked.

 

She had been right in her assumptions that she had still been in the perfect age to make them grow. She had almost 27% more than she did before and even if they had stopped growing so much lately, it had still been more of an improvement than she could have ever hoped for. What a proteinic diet and constant exhaustion didn’t do for chakra reserves.

 

“You’re a slim girl and you have pink hair,” Shizune-senpai had said. “People will always consider that to be a disadvantage for you. Use that to your favour, Sakura-chan. The less powerful they think you are, the better. The trick is to never let them see you coming.”

 

Sakura had spent long afternoons with Shizune at the labs whenever her mind got bored of all the physical training she’d been doing. Shizune taught her about poisons and toxins and how everything works at a microscopical level. It was interesting to see how those rules applied to genjutsu and Sakura always kept a journal near her to take notes on those lessons.

 

Since her training had taken a more practical turn after she managed to master one of her shishou’s signature moves, Sakura’s mission influx had gone off the charts. She had a flawless rate of success to all her missions if only because she had found an inner fierceness in herself that was somewhat unexpected. She would sacrifice anything to finish a mission.

 

Anything other than her teammates’ safety, that is but, so far, she’d mostly been sent on missions that she got to be a captain, so ordering her team to stay behind was easy when it came down to it.

 

The last year had been a busy one for her, that’s for certain. She felt more tired than she’d ever been, but with every sore muscle and cracked bone, she felt stronger. Seeing all her efforts amount to something was more rewarding than she’d expected it to be.

 

Of course, the energy she had so far had waned the closer Naruto’s departure anniversary got. She had been more and more tired the past few days and all she wanted to do was crawl beneath the covers of her fuuton and sleep for the three years that Naruto would take to come home.

 

“How did you know?” Sakura asked quietly when they were leaving the tea shop, the afternoon spent gossiping and laughing like she hadn’t done in what felt like years. “How did you know it was Kakashi?”

 

Ino’s eyebrow twitched when she noticed the lack of honorifics but she didn’t comment on it as a terribly soft expression that made Sakura feel nauseous all over again took over her features. “No one in the world but someone from Team Seven can give you that look, Sakura-chan.”

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Yo!! So sorry for the long wait for this one, you guys, you have no idea how hellish life has been. BUT fear not, my dear friends, I will keep on posting this fic until it. is. DONE. 'ttebayo.

This chapter is a bit transition-y and it may be a bit of a disappointed with the whole lot of nothing happening after quite a long wait, but I promise the next one will be a bit more exciting. I get to (FINALLY OH GAWD) introduce one of my favourite characters hihi BTW I'll write a prompt from whoever figures out who that character is, YAY.

About the previous raffle, oh-jeez didn't actually reply with a prompt soooo they have until the next chapter to send it and I'm gonna do the raffle again if they don't! So if you haven't followed all the restrictions for participating, go back to the next chapter and make sure you do because there's a chance I'll draw another name!!

About this chapter. Well. I have a lot of things to say but not all of them are coming to mind so I'll just settle with: time skip. We finally get to see our poor socially awkward boio-kakashi and that will be the last time for a bit and also we see just how busy Sakura has been. Also, and perhaps more importantly, Sakura's weird/dangerous/worrisome change of personality that began to happen since chapter one is becoming clearer. Remember she is often an unreliable narrator and her views on the Hokage are justified even if we as outsiders who live in western 21st century know Konoha for what it truly is. Military Dictatorship with child soldiers.

Anyways! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! See you all soon :)

Chapter 13: A-Rank

Notes:

Hiya, babes! Look out for the time skips at the beginning of the chapter and around the middle of it. I'll do a quick recap soon so nobody gets confused. Enjoy :)

Sakura thought her chakra reserves enhancing training was finally complete. She didn’t think they would grow much more even if she kept all the exercises she had taken up over a year ago and it started to feel pointless to send her clone away every night. Both her control and her reserves had grown and it was refreshing to say she was satisfied with the results.

 

She would never be a power house like some of her peers but she had more than enough to stand by their side. It was all about control, really, and that she had plenty to go around.

 

Things had been calm for a while. She still woke up screaming most nights and, particularly when Tsunade wasn’t home, spiraled down a dark path in which she barely recognized where she was from time to time. Her coping mechanism had so far been ignoring it ever happened and it was kind of working.

 

After an adjustment period, the Rookie 9 and Team Guy had managed to meet up more often and while Sakura didn’t really participate in many of their gatherings, she did manage to maintain her friendship with Lee, Tenten and, of course, Ino. Her training partners always made sure to include her on some of their training sessions when they were all in the village and once in a while, Tenten would join Ino in forcing her to some girls night. Sometimes even Hinata was present and they had agreed on having sleepovers whenever they could.

 

Sakura just made sure she never actually fell asleep during those.

 

The missions and training were still taking up a lot of her time, but she had managed to let herself be lulled into a sort-of-but-not-really routine. The day she realized that was the day she decided to change her training methods. She wouldn’t get ready for Naruto’s return if she got complacent.

 

So she decided to try something different. On a cloudy afternoon, Sakura headed to one of the Senju training grounds and created a clone, this one more resistant than the ones she used for practicing clone reach. When the rain came, she took to the trees and hid herself. She played a game of cat and mouse with herself until inevitably her clone won and they started sparring.

 

Sparring, perhaps, was putting it lightly. Since the clone was more resistant, it could take a few hits before it disappeared and Sakura used that opportunity to go full out. She used every one of her nastier genjutsu and didn’t hold back on any chakra enhanced physical attacks. It was definitely something she could never practice with her usual sparring partners so these sessions were often destructive and left her completely wringed out.

 

She couldn’t take much from fighting against an ‘enemy’ that had the same skill level and moves as herself but she had learned a lot. After fighting herself for so long, it had become quite easy to stablish her tells and quirks and, after that, to get rid of them. Tenten had noted how unpredictable she’d become and how much that could help her in the field.

 

Sometimes she felt chakra signatures around the training fields but she just steered clear of them and kept to the ones that were vacant, her own chakra always halfway covered.

 

It came as a complete surprise, naturally, when one of her training sessions with herself got interrupted by a loud whistle.

 

“Am I drunk or is there really two of you?” A man asked from the shadows.

 

Sakura immediately turned towards him, her hand unsheathing the tantou at her back and her clone tightening her fists. A tall jounin wearing a bandana-style hitai-ate came out into the clearing, his hands in the air and… was that a senbon on his lips?

 

She heard him muttering something like, “How did I not know there were pink-headed twins in the village?” before he took a few steps closer. Sakura bared her teeth.

 

“What are you doing here?” She asked him and was glad to see him heading her silent warning and stopping where he was.

 

“I was looking for an empty training ground.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Anbu training grounds are always better for night practices. I’m pretty sure you’re not Anbu, though, so that begs the question of what you’re doing here.”

 

He still looked laid back, as if he didn’t really care what her answer was but something about the way he kept his eyes trained on her let her know he was ready to fight her depending on her answer.

 

“Anbu training grounds?” Sakura couldn’t help but frown at that. “This isn’t Anbu training grounds. I live here.”

 

“You live he-“ His eyebrows rose high. “Oh… Oh.” The man scratched his jaw. “I remember you now. Though the last time I saw you, you had considerably less clothes and was covered in blood. You’re Haruno Sakura, right? Kakashi’s kid and the Godaime’s apprentice.”

 

“I’m not Kakashi’s anything.” Sakura raised her chin at him and sheathed her blade. She remembered him from her first mission as a chunin, the shinobi who had cut off the head of the missing nin, and could now fill in some of his features that were hidden by the lack of light. “It’s rude not to introduce yourself when you’re in someone else’s backyard, you know. Specially if you already know their name.”

 

The man smirked at her and came closer into the spot she was standing where the moon illuminated the grass.

 

“Shiranui Genma, darling.” He gave her a two-finger salute. “And this isn’t your backyard. The Senju have let Anbu use these grounds for training for over two decades now.”

 

Sakura copied his shrug, her heart racing a bit at the possibility of him causing her any trouble because she was basically trespassing on Anbu territory. It wasn’t her fault that there weren’t any signs that she was leaving her compound and entering the shadow corps domain. Really, they ought to be more attentive.

 

“No one has ever complained about me being here before.” Was the best she could do.

 

“I suppose that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re masking most of your chakra?” Genma raised an eyebrow at her but he still looked more amused than anything else.

 

Sakura found herself wanting to return his grin but fought against it and shrugged once more in response. His observation confirmed her suspicions that he was a very skilled shinobi. His confusion about there being two of her had only been a ruse and she knew that now.

 

“If this is Anbu grounds than why aren’t you wearing the uniform, Shiranui-san?” Sakura redirected the conversation towards him instead of confirming his accusation.

 

“I don’t want any of that reverence bullshit, kid.” He waved his hand dismissively but Sakura didn’t miss the fact that he was also not answering her question. “It’s Genma.”

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the man. She had long since determined he wasn’t a threat in any way and had seemed to enjoy a joke so letting Inner take over seemed alright with him.

 

“I’m not a kid, jiji.”

 

Genma blinked at her for a second before throwing his head back and laughing. It was the sort of laugh that one would think was carefree but Sakura could see from the way he kept his eyes open and the hand that went to his stomach that was poised just that bit closer to his hip pouch that he was still ready to fight at a moment’s notice. She knew it wasn’t about her, though. He looked to be around Asuma’s age and that would make him around the age that everybody went to fight the Third War.

 

She knew the shinobi around his age had joined the battlefield younger than she had graduated the Academy and she assumed that had left some marks. Not being able to relax, even while in the village, was an expected outcome. There was a reason most of the shinobi from that generation wore their uniforms constantly.

 

“I like you, Blossom.” His smirk was as rugged as his laugh. He pointed his chin towards her tantou. “Do you know how to use that blade or is it just for show?”

 

Sakura’s eyebrow twitched at the nickname and she narrowed her eyes at him, her own grin stretching across her face just before her clone moved in front of her and dispelled itself with an unnecessarily large cloud of smoke. She used the cover to move forward, chakra enhanced muscles propelling her forward in a fast shunshin while she unsheathed her tantou once again and brought it up to meet his neck.

 

The clash of metal on metal was enough to get her blood singing and she couldn’t help the way her smile widened when the smoke cleared and she could see his face once again.

 

“Wanna find out?”

 

It was an unnecessary question because Genma was already moving towards her, his own tantou matching hers blow for blow in a fight that seemed more like a dance. She knew they were both holding back, testing each other’s limits and reach but it was still exhilarating.

 

“You’re good, Flower.”

 

A vicious swipe to his neck.

 

“Your footwork and hold are solid and you’re fast.” They both paused on opposite sides of the training ground, blades still held in the air as Genma looked at her head on. “Tell you what. If you can hold yourself against me until midnight, you got yourself a new sparring partner. Nothing else but our blades are allowed.” He gave a pointed look to the craters and ruined trees she had left behind.

 

Sakura didn’t say anything. She lowered her center of mass by bending her knees and spreading her feet, twirled her tantou on her hand to better grip it and when he said, “Go,” she was already halfway across the training ground.

 

-

 

He never really thought much of medic-nin.

 

During the war there had always been a constant need for them and what he remembered from that horrible, dark time was begging the skies for someone to stench the bleeding on his comrade’s bodies. He remembered how desperation sunk in when the squad he was in had been attacked and the first to be targeted was the sweet girl he’d been flirting with for the past few weeks. Medic skirts and pouches were as good as bullseyes paint in the battlefield and her head flying was a scene that still haunted his nights, well over a decade later.

 

For quite some time, he’d really believed that iryo-nin were, well, a bit useless to be honest.

 

Every single one he had come in contact with the exception of the Hokage and Shizune had been so focused on their training that they had left the ninja part of ‘medic-nin’ aside and the result was a ninja that became a liability in the field. He didn’t make it a habit to request a medic on his missions, even if they were dangerous.

 

This time, though.

 

“I need Shizune on this.” Genma’s voice was hoarse and he knew the team behind him stiffened in response to the heavy feel of the room. He didn’t care to comfort them at the moment.

 

“She’s in a mission, brat,” the Hokage spoke harshly in response to his lack of deference but her eyes held such sadness that he had to look away. She knew all too well what he was feeling and Genma was all too aware of it. “It shouldn’t take long to finish but it would still take some time for her to reach Grass and time is something we can’t spare at the moment.”

 

She was right and he hated her for it. Their information was fresh, a distress message sent as one of Anko’s snakes straight to the Hokage. Her team had been captured by the same syndicate they’d been trying to shut down in the border between Iwa and Grass and they were requesting backup. The message had taken three days to get to Konoha and it would take two more for them to reach Kusa. There was no time to wait for Shizune.

 

Genma fought a shiver.

 

He didn’t normally request a medic-nin for missions, that much was true. But today he would because when it came to his friends, Genma was not one to fuck around.

 

“Haruno Sakura,” he spoke up, lifting his head and looking his Hokage in the eyes as if he wasn’t asking her to send her pseudo-daughter on an A-Rank mission that bordered on Anbu level. His team — Aoba and Raido, ever there by his side — had been specifically set up so that they could work like the well-oiled machine they were, all of them elite jounin. Adding chunin Haruno would be like asking for her to go on a suicide mission.

 

If he didn’t know better, that is.

 

Because no matter all his previous opinions on medic-nins, Sakura had managed to break them all down with her little chakra infused fists. From that first night they had met on Anbu training grounds and throughout the few months ever since, she had proven herself as a skilled fighter. She still had some work to do to get an elite status but the girl was good.

 

Another shiver was forced down, this time one of unease. While he knew she was the obvious choice, Genma still worried. Haruno Sakura, despite her age, had become more than just an occasional training partner for him. There had been moments of respite between trading blows in which they’d gotten to talk and he realized that the girl had a dry sense of humor that bordered on dark and somehow connected with his.

 

They had met from time to time around the village and her pink hair had become a constant in his life in the past weeks. And now he was specifically requesting her for a mission that she might not have the skill to complete.

 

He opened his mouth to back down, go back on his request and hope everyone forgot it ever happened, when a knock on the door interrupted him.

 

“Enter,” Tsunade yelled.

 

“You sent for me, Shishou?” To Genma’s horror, Sakura strode into the room, her pink hair neatly tied in its usual braid, her altered uniform neat and all her weapons present. Genma watched as she nodded to his squad before clearing his throat.

 

“Sakura,” he greeted her with a slight nod and her eyes narrowed in response. He didn’t use her name often, preferred to call her stupid nicknames that always got a rise out of her and suffering through the ‘old man’ jibes she sent back his way, so he knew she recognized the gravity of the situation immediately.

 

Tsunade sent the scroll flying Sakura’s way and she caught it flawlessly before reading it quickly.

 

“Fuck,” she breathed out, her eyes moving over the page so fast he had a hard time thinking she read it all. “Does Iwa know, yet?”

 

It was like the air had been punched out of his lungs.

 

He had been so worried about Anko and the squad she had taken with her that he hadn’t even considered the implications of having Konoha nin being held hostage by a missing nin compound in the border with Iwa. By the sharp intake of breath coming from his friends, he figured they’d failed to think of that too. Five seconds in and Sakura was already being a better jounin than them. They had to pull their heads out of their asses if they wanted to complete this mission. Fast.

 

“Not yet,” Tsunade sighed and massaged her temples. “It won’t be long before word gets to them, so time is of essence here.” Tsunade leveled her gaze on her apprentice. “This is an A-Rank mission that I wouldn’t usually send a chunin to, Sakura. Be careful.”

 

Sakura nodded. “Not my first A-Rank, Shishou,” she tried to assure her, “not even the highest ranked mission I’ve taken.”

 

Despite the situation, Genma found himself curious at hearing those words.

 

“Damnit, Sakura!” The Hokage raised herself from her chair by slapping her hands on the table. “This isn’t an accidental S-Rank. This is an official A-Rank that borders on Anbu level. You wouldn’t be sent if Shizune was in the village. This mission is beyond your skillset and you’ll do well to remember that. Don’t be reckless.”

 

Sakura didn’t glare or shout insults at the Hokage like he expected of a fourteen-year-old. Instead, her expression blanked for a second before she nodded perfunctorily at the Hokage and turned back towards him.

 

“I need to get my medical equipment from my house, taichou.” Her voice was as shuttered and contained as her expression.

 

“That’s fine.” He cleared his throat and stood up straighter. “We’ll all meet up there in fifteen minutes and use training grounds 67 as an exit.”

 

“Team Genma,” the Hokage said, her eyes grave and mouth pinched, “be careful.”

 

“Hokage-sama,” Genma, Aoba and Raido said at the same time but Sakura only smiled gently at her master.

 

“I’ll see you when I get back, Shishou.” Sakura’s big green eyes shinned mischievously but behind it something gentle and scared could be seen. “Don’t let the council drive you crazy without me here, okay?”

 

Genma didn’t know how to feel about Sakura coming with them on such a dangerous and sensitive mission. He felt more anxious than before, the responsibility for his friend’s lives sitting heavily on his shoulders, but he couldn’t help but relax just the tiniest bit when he remembered the slight green tone Sakura’s hands took whenever she healed him after a sparring session.

 

He couldn’t predict how Sakura would handle this mission, but he knew that with her around them, Anko’s chances of survival no matter what she had gone through while being held captive, had just raised tenfold.

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Sooooo, our surprise character is my boyo Genma!!! I absolutely love him and had some unexpected fun writing from his perspective, next chapter will have some more of that ;)

About the chakra exercises. I believe it's about time Sakura reached the point where her reserves won't be doing any significant growing. My personal theory is that it works just like our body, we have growing spurts around puberty and keep on growing (even if very little) until we're about 25. Only, I'd reckon it'd be earlier, say around 20, in the Naruto world. My Sakura is almost completely mature at this point, if you remember my other theory about how ninja grow up earlier than we do due to stress and other stimuli. A fourteen-year-old ninja would naturally be more physically and mentally mature than a fourteen-year-old irl. At this point in the story, Sakura is coming into herself and has developed into a very assertive young adult who has her own set of morals and loyalty. She's becoming more confident in her abilities everyday and is starting to see how successful she really is. I love writing this.

Next chapter we'll have the first part of the mission!! I hope you guys enjoyed this. Please let me know what you think and help make my last days at uni feel a little bit less like death.

Chapter 14: Inbound

Notes:

Happy New Year, everyone

Genma kept a tight arrowhead formation with him leading, Aoba and Raido on either ends and Sakura right behind him. He’d made the mistake of thinking Sakura wouldn’t be able to keep up for long, but after she ‘accidentally’ stepped on the back of his sandals twice, he took the hint and sped up to an almost breakneck run through the trees.

 

Raido and Aoba had complained plenty about going in with an untested chunin on the way to the Senju compound and he had to reign in his own anxiety on the matter. They would act like Sakura was a full fledged jounin and if she showed any signs of fatigue, they would slow down. For now, his goal was to reach Iwa in two days.

 

When they finally stopped for the night, letting their packs fall on a gathering of trees, the crescent moon was already high up in the sky and they’d been running in the dark for a couple of hours. All four of them were winded, but he was relieved to see Sakura wasn’t much worse than they were.

 

“Here you go, Flower.” He nudged her elbow with the water pouch they were sharing. “You have first watch.”

 

“Thanks, jiji.” She replied reflexively and took a few gulps before passing it back to him. “Do you think we’ll reach Iwa tomorrow?”

 

She sat down next to Aoba and accepted the ration he offered her with a slight nod. Genma sat on the other side of them next to Raido and moved his senbon around on his mouth, not touching his food.

 

“Anko is going to be okay.” Raido nudged him with his shoulder but Genma kept his face to the forest floor.

 

“It’s been almost a week.” He took a deep breath. “You and I both know we can’t be sure of anything at this point.”

 

The small clearing was filled with uneasy silence, the darkness around them seeming overwhelming to Genma. His chest felt constricted, like someone was sitting on it. He had lost enough friends over the years, Anko was one of the few good ones he still had and he wasn’t ready to let himself dwell on her situation much.

 

“Mitarashi Anko?” Sakura asked, her voice low and sharp. Genma looked at her and had a hard time finding the fourteen-year-old girl she was supposed to be. He imagined she’d had to grow up fast — they all had to — and that she probably was as much a kid as he was at this point in her career. It was still jarring to see how she transformed when on a mission. It was like someone else had taken her place and she stood that much taller, her eyes noticing every single detail around her even as her chakra remained sealed to less than half of what it was.

 

Sakura on a mission didn’t look like a girl at all. She looked like a five foot six pile of pure muscle and kunoichi. He could count more than seven weapons on her — some of them really well hidden — and the uniform she wore most days seemed somehow more like an armor.

 

“Yes, that’s right.” Raido answered when he didn’t. “We all were at the same class at the Academy.”

 

“Ah.” Sakura nodded again, this time more pensively. “She was one of the proctors for my chunin exams.”

 

“So was I, kiddo.” Genma smirked at her, pushing the chill he felt at seeing her so transformed away and giving himself an internal shake. Head, say goodbye to ass. “But I don’t remember you fighting in the arena.”

 

“That’s because I didn’t.” Sakura shrugged.

 

“How the hell did you become a chunin without making it into the final rounds?” Aoba was looking perplexed at her and Genma could feel the judgement from afar and didn’t really blame him. Sakura had a lot to prove on this mission if she couldn’t even qualify for the finals during the chunin exams.

 

“Field promotion.” Sakura’s voice was clipped and it signaled the end of conversation for the night.

 

Genma admitted that he was curious about that. He remembered the first time he saw her, covered in blood with just her wrappings and mesh shirt to cover herself, three bodies on the ground as she bared her teeth to the enemy that was about to end her. She’d already been a chunin at that point so that meant she had received her field promotion right after the Konoha Crush.

 

The Council must have pushed for it, he decided. It made sense to put a fierce kunoichi like her as a chunin, specially with how much damage control they’d been doing for the past year. Cannon fodder , his mind supplied and he shivered. Field promotions always happened when the village was unbalanced and it scared him that Tsunade had sent her on this mission without considering that Sakura had been wrongly promoted.

 

Sure he knew she was good. During their sparring sessions he could see how she was always improving herself and her movements were fluid and unpredictable, keeping him on his toes. That didn’t mean he thought she’d survive if he went all out on her. He was still a jounin and she was still a chunin, after all, but what did that say about this mission?

 

Anko’s squad was composed of two jounin besides her and one veteran chunin and they’d still been captured. That meant the enemy was either much more powerful than speculated or their numbers exceeded what the mission intel had gathered.

 

They went to sleep without much more conversation that night, Sakura’s sharp gaze watching over them and a perimeter set. Genma was woken up by Aoba for the last shift and he sat on a branch up high and watched the sunrise. Not even fiddling with the senbon between his lips could calm the nervous energy coursing through him.

 

Ideally, this mission would have gone to an Anbu tracking squad — preferably with Hatake in it — and the situation could be handled as safely as possible. With the shortage of shinobi in the village and particularly how Kakashi never seemed to be at Konoha for more than three days at a time, they had to make do. Raido and him had just gotten back from missions and were still tired and the only source of intel was Anko’s tiny snake that came with the appropriate coordinates and code for rescue. If the enemy moved their base, they would have to do the tracking by themselves.

 

“You should be sleeping,” he spoke around the senbon, not bothering to turn and look at Raido who had perched himself silently on the three branch beside him.

 

“You woke me up with all the sighing you’ve been doing,” Raido joked and nudged his shoulder with his. “We need to keep our heads clear if we’re to get this right, Genma.”

 

“I know,” Genma grunted. They stood in silence for a while, both of them watching the sky get lighter.

 

“I didn’t expect you to know the iryo-nin.” Raido looked at him sideways. “Much less for the two of you to have nicknames for each other.”

 

Genma knew what he was implying but didn’t rise up to the bait. The casual way he’d teased her before and her immediate response despite having kept a professional tone with him so far had been completely unintended on both their parts but it couldn’t be helped.

 

Sakura was young, that much he was aware, but he still considered her as a friend.

 

“We spar sometimes and we’ve met up around the village.” Genma frowned at his best friend. “And it’s not like you’re implying.”

 

Raido raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not judging. She’s a fine kunoichi from where I’m standing.”

 

“She’s fourteen .” Genma narrowed his eyes.

 

“Huh.” Raido stared dumbly at him. “She looks older.” He scratched at his scar. “I feel kind of gross now.”

 

“She’s fourteen,” Genma said again, this time in a voice so quiet he barely heard it. The weight on his shoulders became that much heavier.

 

“She must be good.” Raido looked at him. “You wouldn’t waste your time sparring with her if she wasn’t. Do you not think she can handle this mission?”

 

“She’s fucking amazing for a chunin that has had exactly one year of experience, Raido.” Genma pinched the bridge of his nose. “This mission should have been given to Anbu.”

 

Raido was silent for a while, his gaze like a heavy weight on Genma’s shoulders before he spoke up, his voice quiet but strong.

 

“But it was given to us instead.”

 

Genma wanted to rip his hair out. They’d just come back from a week long mission in Kumo and he had barely had any sleep and now one of his friends was being held hostage in the border with Iwa while the other, much more inexperienced one, was the medic on the rescue mission.

 

“Look, you have two options here.” Raido turned him around by the shoulders so that he could look him in the eye. “You either believe in your Hokage’s choice and Haruno’s abilities and see this mission through or you start second guessing everything about this and gets us all killed.”

 

Genma stared wide eyed at his best friend for a second before a snort escaped him. He punched him in the shoulder.

 

“Your pep talk is still shit, asshole.” He smirked at him. “Wake the others up. We leave in ten.”

 

-

 

“There are twenty one ninja in the compound.” Genma stared blankly as Aoba retold what his stakeout had resulted and wondered how they had gotten into this mess. “Four of them just changed stations and are outside doing a perimeter check.”

 

“This is the best time to move in, then.” Raido took a kunai out of his thigh pouch and nodded at him.

 

“Intel said there were seven missing nin in the compound.” Sakura had her arms crossed over her chest and an annoyed frown on her features. “How the fuck did we get such unreliable info on a mission so close to Iwa?”

 

Genma exchanged a look with Raido before meeting her gaze. He saw by how her features darkened that she reached the same conclusion they had. Before he could speak it out loud, though, Sakura raised her finger to her lips to shush him. With quiet steps, she moved around the small clearing, placing tags on the barks of the four threes without saying anything. When she was done, she came back to where they were huddled together and spoke up.

 

“We have a mole, then.”

 

“What was that?” Raido asked as he and Genma examined the carefully woven seals on one of the tags.

 

“Looks like a privacy seal,” Genma pondered out loud.

 

“I didn’t know you knew anything about fuinjutsu, Genma.” Sakura cocked her head to the side.

 

“I learned my way around it when I was on the Guard Platoon for the Yondaime.” Sakura’s eyes widened a bit but he didn’t let her speak up. “Why did you put them up?” It wasn’t really what he wanted to ask, of course, but they didn’t have much time and he figured he could leave the question of just how did she know enough of fuinjutsu to make her own tags for later.

 

Sakura cleared her throat. “During my first mission as a captain, a group of missing nin managed to listen to our plans and later on ambushed us so I figured looking into privacy seals was a good idea. Who did the initial report on this compound?”

 

“Anko’s team,” Raido answered, his voice as grave as his face.

 

“You think someone inside Konoha is working with these missing nin?” Aoba scratched his head. “Why would someone do that?”

 

“I don’t think anything.” Genma moved his senbon around his mouth. “It’s most definitely one of the ninja on Anko’s team. We may have to fight eighteen ninja today, folks.”

 

“There’s only four of us, Taichou!” Aoba fiddled with his glasses. “Some of the chakra signatures I picked up were strong.”

 

“I could send a clone to get a better layout of their chakra,” Sakura offered. “It will be pretty much undetectable under a genjutsu and it will get closer than Aoba-san can. Let’s see what we’re up against before we rush in on such odds.”

 

Genma nodded at her. “Do it.”

 

Sakura weaved a seal and with a quiet pop another one of her appeared. The clone sent Sakura a quick nod before weaving a seal herself and completely disappearing, her chakra fluid and barely present.

 

“No smoke.” Raido raised his eyebrows.

 

“There’s no unnecessary chakra expended if you have enough control,” Sakura shrugged. “I only used about two percent of my chakra on that clone. As soon as it releases we’ll kno — “ She stopped mid sentence, a frown gracing her features one more. “There’s only four jounin level ninja in the compound. One of them is in the middle of it while the other three are in a back room. I think it’s safe to assume that the enemy forces only have one jounin.” She took a deep breath and her eyes focused. “Six chunin level ninja and ten others who could pass for genin or even civilians.”

 

“The odds are fairly better, I guess.” Raido returned his kunai to his pouch and rested his hand there, waiting for Genma to give out further orders.

 

“No matter what level they are, we can’t attack twenty ninja that have hostages with them.” Genma bounced ideas around in his head, his eyes wandering around the tiny clearing and falling on Sakura. Her bottom lip was in between her teeth and he knew she wanted to say something. “What, kid?”

 

“I can get to the hostages without the enemy knowing I’m there,” she said quietly.

 

“It’s too dangerous,” Raido blurted.

 

“It’s our only choice.” Sakura was firmer this time. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I can get inside, heal them and as soon as I signal, we both attack from opposites sides.”

 

“How do you plan on getting past the sentinels?” Genma asked.

 

“Aren’t you an assassination specialist?” She smirked a bit. “I’m sure you can handle taking three genin and a chunin out without making a fuss.”

 

Genma rolled his eyes at her sass but chose not to comment on it. Raido’s words from earlier came back to him. As much as he hated putting her in that position, Sakura had just presented a very valid solution to their problem. They talked some more, hashing out the details of the plan before he finally nodded at her.

 

“I trust you.” It was a concession and a warning but Sakura only smiled.

 

It was a smile so brilliant and unexpected that Genma was floored for half a second before returning it.

 

“Move your pretty little ass, Blossom.” He grinned at her, his own resolve settling as he felt her reduce her chakra so much and make it so smooth, he couldn’t feel a difference between her and the three behind her.

 

“When we all get back to Konoha,” she disappeared from their view just like her clone had, “you’ll owe me a fuinjutsu lesson, old pervert.”

 

-

 

 

 

Notes:

My dudes, something terrible happened. My computer broke down with everything I had written for this fic (and quite a few Adobe files) and I was completely ruined for about two weeks when I realised I had saved original drafts of the chapters on my google drive ha ha. I lost quite a few updated versions of things but all in all I managed to keep my chapters. Sorry about the delay, it was because I wanted to die.

BUT new year, new life, your crazy author is officially BACK and I've been writting a lot recently. Sorry for the short chapter, it was really transitiony and sucky but more will come soon, promise. Next chapter our baby Sakura is going to show them all she's not much of a baby anymore. Next chapter is one of my favourites actually. You'll see.

I absolutely LOVE writing Genma, you guys, he's such a sweet baby I love him. Getting into his mindset was surprisingly easy and he's become a more important character than what was initially planned for him. Oh well, at this point I'm just rolling with it. Hope you guys enjoy it. This chapter was from his perspective because I wanted to show Sakura's progress through someone else's eyes. We don't normally realise how far we've come and I think Sakura is at that point where she knows she improved but she's still more focused on getting better and better and can't really appreciate just how good she already is. It's time people start noticing.

Anyways, my loves, I just wanted to take the time to thank you all for all your love and support. I'm really sorry I haven't been able to get back to all of you when you guys review but I get so anxious sometimes, it's kinda hard for me. I want you guys to know that I read every single one of them, sometimes more than once haha, and they mean so much to me. You guys really make me feel so good about writing this and I'm so happy I get to share this little piece of madness with y'all. In about five days it'll be a year of writing this and, really, you guys keep me going. I'll do something for that date, what do you guys suggest?

See you soon :)

Chapter 15: Mission Complete

Sakura moved closer to her position, feeling her teammate’s chakra signatures spreading out on the compound, each of them targeting one sentinel. She didn’t bother staying away from any of them, simply walked towards the back of the compound where the room that held the three jounin and a chunin was. She trusted her comrades to take out the ninja outside.

 

Her blood was rushing through her veins, pumping hot with excitement as she approached a window. She didn’t particularly like killing whenever she was ordered to but being there, right under the enemy’s nose undetected was something she had rather come to enjoy. Every mission she completed, every enemy she outsmarted brought a sense of fulfillment to her like nothing else.

 

For the first time in all her life she could look at her accomplishments and be satisfied. Her training wasn’t complete by any means but she had gotten good enough to not let her progressing skills hinder her in the field. She learned how to hide her disabilities in battles and how to use everything she had to her favor. She wasn’t done, no, but she was good. Her mission success rate proved that.

 

Two men passed over the window she was looking through. One of them was short and stocky and looked like he could break her neck by squeezing it between two fingers. The other was only slightly taller but considerably skinnier. They wouldn’t look like much if it weren’t for the countless weapons strapped to their bodies and the dark brown paint on their faces. Like crusted blood.

 

Sakura frowned and molded her chakra to a thin string, directing it through the open window and letting it settle a perimeter on the floor, walls and ceiling next to it. The genjutsu she cast using that tiny amount of chakra wasn’t enough to fool a jounin level ninja but it would be enough to make whoever came across that hallway suddenly have the urge to turn back around.

 

With that part over, she nimbly climbed over the windowsill and slipped inside the hallway. The two goons were still walking towards the end of the hall towards a windowless room where she hoped Anko and her team were being held.

 

Sakura was completely in her element at that moment, sneaking up to her prey in the cover of her genjutsu, preparing to knock them unconscious with another use of her affinities to the art of illusion. Just before they reached the door, she weaved the signs for two genjutsu simultaneously and stretched her arms forward to catch them when they feel back.

 

With chakra pumping through her muscles, she bound them both together, took their weapons and threw them outside the window. Sakura turned back to the door and rummaged in her pouch for lockpicks. She wasn’t the best at it because she never really had to practice much, but the fact that she knew the mechanics behind the whole process and that it strongly resembled a puzzle helped in assuring she had it done in under two minutes.

 

She had to move fast now, before there was a shift change or someone noticed they were missing six ninja. She pushed the door open and almost cringed back. The smell of blood and decay was strong and if she hadn’t spent some of her time at the morgue, she might have thrown up.

 

The room was bare but for the bodies on the floor. Two of them huddled in one corner, one of them laid down on the other corner with what looked to be Anko’s coat covering them and the woman herself, only wearing her mesh shirt and pants, right in the middle of the room.

 

Sakura was surprised to find her conscious and even more that she had the strength to bare her teeth at Sakura.

 

She put her hands up and approached her slowly.

 

“I’m here to rescue you, Mitarashi-san,” Sakura kept her voice steady as she prepared herself to start her triage and defend herself at the same time. “I’m here with Genma, Raido and Aoba.”

 

Sakura thought that even if the woman before her hadn’t been clearly dehydrated, she wouldn’t have cried but the sheer, unadulterated relief that she felt was betrayed by how her shoulders relaxed and she swayed a little even while sitting down.

 

“The Hokage sent me a pink haired kid and three doofus.” Anko’s voice was raspy and her eyes fought against the weight of her lids. “Great.”

 

“I’m sure you’ll appreciate it better when you’re safe back in Konoha, Mitarashi-san,” Sakura quipped before finally reaching a hand to her wrist, instinctively knowing the woman wouldn’t take well to being touched anywhere else. She concentrated on the feeling of Anko’s week, barely there chakra network and coached her own through it, assessing the damage quickly.

 

“Cut that Mitarashi-san crap, Pinky.” Anko coughed. “Name’s Anko.”

 

“Sakura,” she replied softly, before she reached inside her pouch and gave her two pills. “Blue one first. Wait two minutes before taking the soldier pill. What’s your teammate’s status?”

 

“Kaito and Kenzou fell asleep a few hours ago. Hirako is dead.” Anko’s voice was blunt, the nutrition pill Sakura had given her already taking effect. “There is also the tiny fact that there is a — “

 

“Take three small sips,” Sakura interrupted and handed her a water canteen. “You have too many wounds for me to heal right now. I’ll work on damage control, enough for you to fight, and after we’re gone I’ll fix the rest of it.” Even as she talked, her chakra was already doing as she said, coaching Anko’s cells to reproduce and multiply accordingly. It was clear from her injuries that she had suffered through some type of torture. “About the other important factor concerning your teammates, we’re already aware of it and we’ll deal with it after we’re all free.”

 

Sakura got up and went to the other two huddled in the corner and healed them as best as she could without spending much of her chakra. If only there was a way to fight dehydration with medical ninjutsu. For now, they would have to make do with her nutrition pills and the soldier pills.

 

With all three of them woken up, healed and carrying the weapons from their guards, Sakura nodded at them.

 

“Yosh.” Sakura adjusted her gloves. “As soon as I give the signal, we’ll attack from this side and the others from the outside. Hopefully they’ll attract more attention than us. Remember that the soldier pills and the patch up healing isn’t enough to leave you to your full abilities, so I think I should take point on this one.”

 

Sakura kept her eyes on the three of them as she talked, monitoring their chakra fluctuations and mannerisms.

 

“Once that wall,” she pointed to the one that the corpse of their teammate was resting against, “is gone, we’ll reach the main hall where most of the enemy ninja are awaiting. Be prepared for attacks on all sides.”

 

Kaito was looking at her with fear and trepidation in his eyes while Kenzou tightened his fists around the katana he was holding. Sakura looked closely at them both for a second, noticing how Kenzou’s eyes seemed to darken with something like anger and determinations, his whole body vibrating with nervous energy.

 

“We are greatly outnumbered, Sakura-san,” Kaito said, his voice quivering just so.

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes. “Are you not shinobi of the Leaf?” Anko snorted but Sakura ignored her. “All three of you are jounin of Konoha, you have weapons and you can walk. You will fight and we’ll get out of here.” Sakura had taken Inner’s proffered mask of fierce determination, the thrill of the impending fight rushing down her spine. She smiled at them, a dangerous smile that was more bared teeth than anything else. An intimidation tactic and reassuring gesture all in one.

 

Kaito squared his shoulders and nodded at her before tightening his hitai-ate.

 

It was deliberate. She wanted to see how they would react to her façade. She knew from experience that those against her cowered when faced with it but her teammates always stood up straighter at the sight of that particular smile. It was good to have a monster on your side unless… Her eyes zeroed in on Kenzou.

 

Unless you weren’t really on its side.

 

“Kenzou!” She called out and threw a scroll at him. “Seal your teammate’s body in that.”

 

Kenzou stared wide eyed at the scroll, the nervous energy she had noticed before increasing by the second. He moved to the corpse hurriedly and sealed it up without a second look before taking his place behind her and slightly to her left, scroll firmly into his pouch.

 

She had expected to find only three team members inside that room, the other having defected to join the band of missing nin in the compound. Now, she knew exactly what had happened.

 

“You’re not gonna blow that wall up, are you Pinky?” Anko scowled at her. “Because that would be really stupid.”

 

Sakura snorted. “I’m not gonna blow it up, Mitarashi-san .” Sakura enjoyed seeing the tick on Anko’s eyebrow. Really, the woman deserved it for insisting on that wretched nickname. “You should still step back, though.”

 

And without another warning, Sakura rushed forward. With chakra gathered on her fist, she let it collide with the wall before sending it to web out. The whole wall was instantly pulverized and the small particles of dust that resulted flew over the hall, obscuring their enemy`s vision.

 

Sakura immediately detected the closest chakra signatures, even with her vision impaired, and sent out four senbon to take them down. The sound of them hitting the ground was covered by her team’s entrance through the front door. The dust cleared out and she could see all of them, weapons ready and fingers weaving signs for ninjutsu that only elite could do.

 

Her first year as a chunin and she had mostly been sent on missions in which she was team leader, only a few times serving under a jounin, so this was the first mission she got to see them truly at work. It was intoxicating.

 

Sakura’s own skills seemed to improve, her senses sharpen, her blood pump faster. Being around better ninja made her reach that extra mile and she knew she had never fought like this. Her body was weightless liquid, changing forms and stances constantly, slashing down men with her tantou or just merely punching right through their chests.

 

The three ninja behind her barely had to do any work, only fight off the occasional ninja who came from different rooms from behind them. However, Kenzou — who was supposed to be taking care of Sakura’s left flank — seemed to be lagging.

 

Sakura dodged a swing of a kunai and dove under the enemy’s arm before using her momentum to bury her tantou right into his heart, her lower stature making it easy to angle the blade up and bypass his body’s natural protective bone structure. Without stopping, she picked Kenzou from the scruff of his neck and shoved him in front of her.

 

“Don’t fall back!” She yelled over the sound of dozens of dying men.

 

They fought through another wave of ninja and it was over. Sakura didn’t know who had been the one to kill the last missing nin but suddenly Genma was saying something and Anko was barking a laugh and Raido was grinning.

 

“You look like a complete psycho, Blossom,” Genma laughed at her and he looked pleasantly surprised. “You and Anko will be best friends pretty soon, I’m betting.”

 

“Oi!” Anko punched him in the shoulder. “I’ll show you psycho, Shiranui.”

 

“No fighting, children.” Raido stepped between them, his hands in the air. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get back to Konoha.”

 

Sakura sheathed her tantou and wiped her bloodied hands on her pants.

 

“We were supposed to take some of them in for questioning,” Aoba said, his hand on his hip as he looked around at the bodies littering the floor of the hideout.

 

Sakura didn’t really know how to feel about them treating the carnage before them so lightly. A part of her — the part of her that had been nurtured by her parents and that thought ladies shouldn’t fight — thought it was appalling the sheer disregard for life they were showing.

 

She had squashed that part of her pretty thoroughly in her year and a half as a shinobi.

 

Now all that was left was a slight remorse for the people these ninja might have been and even then, it didn’t really factor into her conscience because at the end of the day, those ninja were standing between her and ensuring her teammate’s safety.

 

It was with that thought in her mind that Sakura stretched her arms and rolled her neck.

 

“I’m so tired.” She whined in a soft voice. She saw Aoba, Genma and Raido looking at her questionably and the other shinobi’s barely contained disgust when she gave a girlish giggle, soft and airy. “But you don’t need to worry Aoba-san. I got that part handled.”

 

“What did you do, Petal?” Genma’s eyes met hers and she thought she saw recognition in their dark depths.

 

“I have a couple of guys tied up in the back.” She winked at him. “I’ll go get them and we’ll meet up at our last camp?”

 

Genma frowned. “Someone should go with you.” Oh, yes. He definitely had caught on to her tactics.

 

“I’ll go.” Kenzou approached her from the left and Sakura wanted to smile in satisfaction but didn’t.

 

“Thanks, Kenzou.” She started leading the way back to the room they had been held captive. “Come on.”

They walked in silence until they reached the window she had climbed through and Sakura smiled up at him.

 

“Give me a hand?” She barely waited for him to reach out before enclosing his hand with hers, the tip of her middle finger finding his pulse.

 

“What the — “ Kenzou fell to his knees.

 

“You know, it’s really easy to lower someone’s heartbeat if you know your way around the human body.” Sakura’s voice was low and steady. “Right now it’s enough that with how dehydrated and tired out from the after effects of the soldier pill, your body can’t handle standing up.”

 

“You fucking bitch.” Kenzou spat at her.

 

Sakura shrugged.

 

“Been called worse.” She took his chin with her other hand and tilted it up so he would look her in the eye. “At first I thought the mole had been deliberately leading Anko’s team into a trap because they were somehow affiliated with the syndicate but it wasn’t until I saw you that I got it.”

 

“How did you…” Kenzou slurred, his eyelids drooping.

 

Sakura slipped into her mask as easily as putting on your favourite coat was.

 

“You led them somewhere you knew they would be outnumbered but not outmatched and hoped that in the chaos you’d be able to run away, defect from Konoha.” She laughed, the sound flat and cold. “Do you know the first important lesson I got as a ninja?”

 

Kenzou was still awake but slipping fast as Sakura bent down to whisper.

 

“Those who don’t follow the rules are trash but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash.” She bared her teeth at him, her eyes locking on his and relishing the fear she found there. “I hate people like you and I wish I could crush your throat and watch you choke on your own blood but death it’s too merciful for you.”

 

Kenzou’s eyes, wet with tears of desperation, rolled behind his head and he slumped against her. Sakura sighed, let go of the tension on her shoulders and hauled him out of the window like she’d done the two goons from before.

Genma and the others were waiting for her.

 

“You know,” he drawled. “You sounded just like Kakashi right there.”

 

“Fuck off.” Sakura scowled at him and moved to Kaito, her hands glowing green as she moved to heal him.

 

“Eh?” Raido scratched at his scar. “You’re Kakashi’s genin?”

 

“She’s not Kakashi’s anything,” Genma mocked her at the same time as she said, “I’m not Kakashi’s anything. ”

 

Genma sent Raido a look that said, “See?”

 

Sakura sneered at him and moved to heal Anko only to have the woman bat her hands away.

 

“I’m fine, doc.”

 

“I didn’t ask,” Sakura took the woman’s wrist by force and used her chakra so she couldn’t dislodge it. She was refraining from touching her anywhere else and she knew Anko appreciated it by how she relaxed a bit. “We need you in top shape when coming back to Konoha because me and Kaito will be busy carrying those idiots back. If we’re attacked, I need you to have my back.”

 

“The mission is over, Sakura-san,” Aoba stretched. “There’s no need to worry about an attack.”

 

Sakura scoffed. “The mission is over when we hand our reports to the Hokage.” She slugged Kenzou and one of the goons on her back like two sacks of rice, effortlessly. “If there’s something I learned is that Team Seven has shitty luck when it comes to missions.”

 

Sakura didn’t miss the looks exchanged between Anko, Raido and Genma but didn’t know what to make of it. There was something dark behind it, something that spoke of pain and loss and that held the heavy weight of past horrors. She analysed it, processed it and stored it away in her mind for further wonderings. For now, she had to get three traitors into IT.

 

-

 

 Tsunade leaned her elbows on her desk and let her folded hands hide the smirk she was sporting. The shinobi in front of her was ragged and bloodied, having done two A-Ranks back to back wasn’t exactly easy, even if they had been both successful.

 

“You didn’t want to take Sakura did you, Shiranui?” Tsunade didn’t miss the way his eyes travelled quickly towards Shizune before snapping back to her. How amusing it was to see them both skirting around each other. “I just heard from Ibiki that one of the shinobi you caught was a recently deserted Iwa ninja. I ought to give you a bonus for that. That is, of course, if you have anything to say on Sakura’s performance.”

 

Genma snorted, shaking his head a little bit.

 

“I knew she was good you know. There was never a doubt about her skills.” He stepped forward to press a piece of paper into her desk. “This mission proved she could do more than be a good sparring partner, though. She can follow orders just fine but when she’s in a leader position is when she shines. She works well under pressure, she can create and execute plans flawlessly and her gut instinct is strong. When we were out there, it didn’t feel like we were a jounin squad trying to work around our only chunin member.”

 

“What are you saying, Genma?” Tsunade narrowed her eyes at him and then at the paper in front of her. If he was implying what she thought he was…

 

“I’m saying it is my duty as a jounin of the Leaf to officially recommend Haruno Sakura for the Jounin Exams.” He nodded at the piece of paper. “There are four signatures in there from the other jounin present in the mission.”

 

“She’s fourteen,” Tsunade spoke before she realised she was going to. Her heart was constricting painfully in her chest for some reason and she fought hard against a frown.

 

Genma moved the senbon around his mouth a few times before answering. She was sure his eyes were seeing deep into her soul. She didn`t like it.

 

“She’s a highly skilled chunin who stands a chance of passing the Jounin Exams,” he said simply, like anything about it was simple at fucking all.  

 

“The council will not—”

 

“Are you trying to find excuses for not making her a candidate?” He interrupted her before she could finish her sentence and it was enough to make her hiss.

 

“Get out.”

 

Tsunade didn`t yell and throw things at him like she normally would and perhaps that was the bigger indicator of all that he should be getting the fuck away from there. She wasn`t surprised when he bowed his exit but she most certainly wasn`t expecting his parting words to hit her so hard.

 

“Forgive me, Hokage-sama. I only have Sakura’s best interests in mind.”

 

 

Notes:

Hey, guys! Sorry for the wait, it`s been hell not having a computer, I'm currently posting this on a public on and let me tell you the keyboard is absolute rubbish.

I was so excited for this chapter, I hope you guys liked it as much as I did haha, please let me know what you think!

Poor Tsunade, yo, she's having to come to terms with the fact that she actually loves that pink haired brat and what it means for her as a Hokage. Sending your pseudo-daughter to missions was hard but imagine how much harder it would be for her with Sakura as a jounin? And a civilian borne one at that.

You guys, are so so so fucking wonderful in your reviews, it leaves me breathless sometimes the amount of support I'm receiving from people I don't even know!! Please continue to do so, it's my greatest motivator and you know it makes me write faster haha Love you all <3

Chapter 16: Once Broken Cannot be Fixed

Notes:

Believe it or not, my computer broke down AGAIN. Anyway, I'm back bitches

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side.

 

“Come on, Pinky.” Genma squeezed her upper arms and shook her a little. “It’s tradition!”

 

Sakura scoffed and glared at him until he took his hands off her. He smirked. Sakura’s glower deepened. Cheeky bastard.

 

“I’m not going to a bar with you, pervert.” She turned back to the genin behind the missions assignment desk and smiled a bit aggressively at him. “Are you sure you don’t have any C-Ranks for me?”

 

“I’m sorry, Haruno-san, I can’t give you any missions outside the village for another two days.” The skinny man paled when he looked at her and Sakura took it as a cue to restrain her attitude.

 

“You make it sound like I’m asking you on a date,” Genma reminded her of his presence. “It’s tradition after an A-Rank for everybody to get shitfaced drunk.”

 

“It’s a jounin tradition,” Sakura reminded him.

 

She turned around and started to walk out of the Tower, intent on finding something to do at the hospital. She was sure a lot of nightmares would plague her that night — it usually went like that after a mission — and she would only let herself rest if she was completely exhausted. It was better that way.

 

“Yeah, well.” Genma easily kept up with her as they walked outside. “It was a jounin mission which you happened to be a part of. In that case, you absolutely can’t break tradition.”

 

Sakura shot him a deadpan look and his smirk only widened in reply. She sighed.

 

“I’m not dressing up — “ Genma hooted in victory but she ignored him. “I’m not going until after I finish a shift at the hospital and you’re paying.”

 

She narrowed her eyes at him once more, just to make sure he knew how inconvenient he was being before walking away.

 

“See you at eight, Sweet Cheeks!” He called back to her and laughed when a pair of ninja leaving the Tower looked at him strangely.

 

Sakura hastened her stride and hoped they didn’t think the comment was for her. Sometimes Konoha looked less like a village filled with serious shinobi and more like a gossip hub. And the ninja were the worst.

 

The last thing she needed was a rumor about her having something with a ninja twice her age.

 

Working at the hospital had become much more bearable after her confrontation with Momoe but a thousand times more difficult in some aspects. Most of the nurses were afraid of her now and, usually, she only went there when the more serious cases required it or if she was going to meet Shizune for some poison work.

 

When she got there, a harried looking genin medic-nin bowed low and said there weren’t any cases in need of immediate attention even though Sakura could see the janitors cleaning the blood on the floor towards the ICU. That could only mean one thing.

 

“Are you sure they don’t need any help in there?”

 

“Sakura-sensei, I’m terribly sorry,” the girl bowed, “but I don’t have any access to that case and… neither do you.”

 

ANBU.

 

The only place that Sakura had been forbidden of going was the back of the ICU where the shadow corps took care of their more grievously wounded. They took their identity very seriously and only authorised medics were allowed to treat them even though most people knew who was in Anbu and who wasn’t.

 

However, it made sense to bar all unnecessary staff from treating Anbu operatives. A good medic could tell a lot just from looking at injuries and it wouldn’t do to have all types of classified information leaking around the village.

 

With a frown, Sakura pulled up the sleeves of her shirt and tidied her hair.

 

“I’ll just have to do some rounds at the Emergency Unit, then.”

 

The rest of the day was spent treating minor injuries and setting bones. It seemed like this was one of those days that literally everybody seemed to be out of the village, finishing up their missions and almost no one was due back. It didn’t matter because all Sakura needed was to keep her hands busy.

 

She needed to feel her chakra being used for something other than destruction. It was kind of therapeutic to help cells multiply instead of strengthening her own so she could punch a hole through someone’s chest. She hoped this tiny bit of balance she brought to the universe was enough to keep the worst of her nightmares away from her usual breakdown after a mission.

 

It didn’t matter that the mission was a success or not, Sakura always needed a couple of days to go back to her intense training routine after a mission. While she had come to appreciate the thrill of being out in the field, actively doing something to help, she was self-aware enough to know it still was a sort of trigger for her.

 

The couple of days after a mission were always filled with flashbacks and periods of time in which she was either too riled up or in which she didn’t see time passing at all.

 

That night she headed to the bar and had her first taste of alcohol.

 

She sat on a table with Anko, Genma, Raido, Aoba and Kaito and downed shot after shot with them. After a while, her belly was warm and her body felt light. She was pleasantly dizzy and everything made her want to laugh and it was only then that she got why it was tradition.

 

They were all like her, she mused as Genma helped the hiccupping disaster that was her body into her bed, just before sunrise. Because while Sakura couldn’t really focus much on anything, she did notice that Genma’s senbon was bouncing more than usual, his grin wider or that Anko was loud and inappropriate or even that Raido couldn’t keep still for longer than exactly thirty-three seconds.

 

They were feeling just like her and probably had the same troubles she did, only with almost a decade and a half more of experience and trauma to add on to that.

 

Sakura fell asleep that night feeling better. She understood what Genma was trying to say through his actions now. She wasn’t alone, there were others just like her who had to grow up too fast and they all had each other’s backs.

 

-

 

Sakura woke up the next day feeling like she was underwater. Her limbs were heavy and her eyes unfocused and a constant ache pounded behind her eyes. With a groan, she got up to make herself some tea.

 

The house was silent and from the lack of dirty dishes, Sakura knew Tsunade hadn’t even come back last night. It wasn’t an uncommon thing but it still worried her. If a wave of nausea hadn’t hit her, she would definitely be considering searching for her shishou to help her out with whatever work she was buried under.

 

“Oh, shit.” Sakura leaned her head against the fridge and tried to will her stomach’s contents down. The chill was good on her head but it made the rest of her body shiver so she quickly gave up on that and forced herself to go through the process of making the strongest tea possible.

 

Swallowing anything down seemed like the last thing she should be doing but after draining her cup, she felt marginally better. Good enough to be able to walk in a straight line towards her bathroom.

 

Deciding if she sat on the tub, she would fall back asleep, Sakura discarded the idea of a bath and turned the knob to the fullest. After a while of staying under the strong stream of hot water, she managed to slip into a meditative state by focusing on the flow of the stream pushing against the back of her neck. Her chakra seemed to tune in to that frequency almost instinctively and when it did, Sakura had an easier time controlling it.

 

She focused her attention on her liver, activating the cells there and encouraging them with her chakra to work faster on filtering the alcohol in her system. It was a slow process, mostly because she wasn’t in any hurry and also because while she was confident in her abilities, it was never a good idea to meddle with complex things on a cellular level when she could barely see straight.

 

After a while, she felt good enough to step out of the shower. Her headache was still present but it wasn’t enough of a bother at the moment and she knew it was only going away after she drank enough water to replenish what she lost.

 

Sakura put on her uniform slowly, almost languidly, before heading out. It was only after a hearty breakfast on her favourite café that a harried Kotetsu found her.

 

“Sakura!” He panted. “Tsunade-sama needs you at the hospital. It’s an emergency.”

 

Sakura was already moving before he even stopped speaking. They both took to the rooftops, the civilians around them looking on annoyed.

 

“Do you know anything about it?” Sakura asked him, her tone serious.

 

“I know she’s been in there with Shizune since last night.” Kotetsu scowled. “They’re in the Red Section.”

 

Red Section was what almost everybody called the intensive care unit reserved for Anbu members. If Sakura was right, the trail of blood she’d seen leading to its doors may be from the same people Shizune and Tsunade have been treating for over twelve hours. The name had been given to how common it was to see the floors around it shining with blood.

 

Anbu operatives were as bad as the jounin in the village when it came to going to the hospital, specially because there was an infirmary on Headquarters, so if the Red Section was being used—specially by not only Shizune, but also Tsunade —then it was a sure thing that whoever was in there was fighting for their lives.

 

Sakura sped up.

 

Tsunade had made a point not to give her access to Anbu cases and if she was calling for Sakura like that, it was because something had gone terribly wrong. Not one for caring about etiquette during a crisis, she jumped through the open window at the top floor where her shishou’s chakra pulsed angrily.

 

“Do you have the test results or not?” She heard her yell. “It’s a simple fucking question!” Something made contact with the wall.

 

“They’re inconclusive, Hokage-sama.” A skinny man cowered before her, his robes shining with blood just like the head medic’s.

 

“Shishou,” Sakura interrupted before Tsunade could throttle the poor man. “Where do you need me?”

 

“Where the fuck have you been?” Tsunade glared at her. “Nevermind. Come with me.” Then she turned around and went through a set of double doors that Sakura knew marked the entrance to the Red Section.

 

Four beds were occupied, each of the bodies laying there shaking so much it was a wonder they didn’t fall off. Shizune was bent over one of them, another medic helping her hold down the woman on the table.

 

“What is going on?” Sakura stared in horror at Shizune plunging a yellow liquid into the woman’s chest cavity with one hand and extracting it with another, this time the blob of chemicals holding a few drops of neon green liquid.

 

Poison. Sakura had studied enough of it with her senpai to know that this wasn’t any they’d known before. There were a lot of things she realised while her body kicked into gear, instinct taking over and she was moving towards the woman to help hold her down.

 

The first thing she noticed was that while the shinobi on the tables had open, gaping wounds and torn clothes, there wasn’t as much blood as expected. The second thing, and perhaps the most worrisome, was just how tired Shizune looked. While Tsunade’s eyes had bags under them as she worked on one of the men, Shizune’s hands positively shook and her eyelids drooped.

 

Sakura would have to step in any second now.

 

She mentally prepared herself for the procedure Shizune was administering on the woman and listened closely to what Tsunade was saying.

 

“They arrived from Kumo yesterday, their team captain and this one here,” Tsunade pointed at the man whose chest she was inspecting with chakra filled hands, “carried the other two all the way here. Half the team went down from the poison immediately, we haven’t been able to make an antidote yet. All we know about it is that it contains a blood coagulating agent that’s highly effective, we’re struggling to keep their organs functioning long enough to extract the poison.”

 

“I didn’t get to that point in my training, Shishou,” Sakura’s voice didn’t shake but she felt cold all of a sudden. The realization of what was going to happen settling in her stomach making it churn. “What do I do?”

 

“You know the theory, girl. Watch Shizune and I and trust your gut. You can—Fuck.” Tsunade furrowed her eyebrows, sweat gathering at her temples. “His lungs are failing. Sakura, take over for Shizune, I need her help on this.”

Her body follows the command before she can properly analyse what it’s doing. She scrubs her hands thoroughly and as fast as she can, accepts the cirurgical mask the nurse places on her face and moves to take Shizune’s place. 

 

The woman is so pale, she already looks half-dead. Sakura checks her vitals and orders someone to hold her down, her voice sounding far away as all her focus is suddenly zoomed in on the person in front of her. She reaches for the chemical concoction and tries to gather it to her right hand but some of it falls on the floor when she moves it to hover above the woman’s exposed chest. 

 

She breathes in, closes her eyes and plunges the liquid inside her.

 

The resistance she finds is expected but jarring all the same. She’s so used to tuning her chakra so accutelly to her patient’s that there is barely any resistance with the work she’s trying to achieve. This is completely different.

 

It’s like even though the woman is too out of it to scream, she can feel it. Like every cell in her body is screaming out and beging her to stop. Sakura takes longer than she hoped for to find the particles of poison but when she feels the first one, it’s easy to find all of it.

 

She takes the liquid away with her left hand and dumps it in a bucket without looking. There’s still a lot of poison stuck right into the kunoichi’s right atrium, the organ itself beating so feebly, it’s barely keeping her alive.

 

“I’m gonna lose her.” It didn’t sound like her voice but it was her mouth that spoke the words. The moment they’re spoken, the machine monitoring her vitals flatlines. 

 

There’s a rush of movement where the few nurses allowed inside all work with her to start the resuscitating process and Sakura wouldn’t be able to remember it if she tried. She knew it would be in vain the moment she took a look inside the woman’s body. Logically, she knew it was a lost cause, but admitting defeat was never her style. 

 

She pumped chakra into her system until she felt chakra burns on her hands and only stopped when one of the nurses shook her roughly by the shoulders. She was dead and the staff were already unhooking her from the machines.

 

Sakura stares at the woman on the table.

 

It’s a corpse now, she reminds herself. The blood that should have been pumping through her veins is now staining the bedsheets beneath her just like Zabuza’s did on the bridge. Just like Haku’s. Her skin is losing what little colour and warmth it held fast and soon it will be completely cold.

 

She knows that because she had touched her fingers to Haku and Zabuza’s neck that day. They were cold and clammy from all the water around them and sometimes she still had nightmares about the feeling of their skin beneath her fingertips. It’s not something she will ever forget.

 

Sakura thinks she’s fine with the memories the corpse on the table forces upon her. It’s becoming easier and easier to push those kinds of thoughts back because Inner knows she’ll get a chance to bring it back up during the field. So she knits them into the patchwork of a cloak she shrugs on when needed and paints them on the mask she wears. It’s almost a habit now, an afterthought.

 

What she isn’t ready for is the blood bringing flashes of Ino falling to the forest ground so viciously to the forefront of her mind.

 

She couldn’t save the woman. It was logical to think that it wasn’t exactly her fault but it didn’t matter because she had taken her last breath under Sakura’s chakra filled hands and that wasn’t a fact that would change anytime soon. All the people she had killed before couldn’t possibly have prepared her for the feeling of having someone die on her operating table.

 

Because while those deaths she could justify—it was for the village, she was completing the mission, it was her duty —this one hit close to home.

 

That woman had two teammates who would wake up happy to be back home only to realize she never will. She had a captain that was sitting on the hallway outside, hearing about the news from the Hokage herself. It was all a reminder of how that day had went. Ino’s blood on her, Hinata falling to the hospital floor when they arrived.

 

Sakura raised a shaky hand to her head and pushed the loose strands back, counting her breaths and willing the darkness on the corner of her eyes away. Nausea made her exhale sharply and her next breath stuttered in her chest.

 

“Sakura.”

 

She didn’t know how long her shishou had been calling for her but when she finally came back to herself, Tsunade was looking at her like she might either pass out or attack her. Sakura’s awareness of her surroundings came back slowly and she noticed that Shizune was almost asleep on the only chair in the room, her head resting on the wall behind her. The two nurses there were writing something on the patient’s charts and attaching them to fluids.

 

The body was covered by a white sheet.

 

“You did good today,” Tsunade said. “Go home and rest. I’ll see you for dinner, okay?”

 

Sakura wanted to bare her teeth at her. She did good? What a fucking joke. She wanted to claw at her shishou’s face and demand her to actually look at her and tell the truth about how much of a fuck up she was she couldn’t even save a woman that had survived all the way from Kumo.

 

As soon as the violent thoughts entered her mind, though, they left leaving only a hollow feeling behind. Shame and regret welled deep inside her and Sakura lowered her head.

 

“I’ll take Shizune-senpai home.” Her voice was barely above a whisper but she knew Tsunade heard her when she squeezed her shoulder.

 

“Take Hatake with you, he’s outside waiting for news of the other two and he still needs some healing.” Tsunade scoffed. “The brat refused any, but I trust you to guilt trip him into it.”

 

Sakura ignored the pang in her belly when Tsunade said she trusted her and focused on the other part of the sentence. Hatake Kakashi was the captain outside. The hair on her arms raised when she realised that he had just been told that a teammate—his subordinate, the kunoichi technically under his command—wasn’t going to make it.

 

She may have thought that she had been done with him but just the idea that he was going through what she did with Ino and Hinata made her shudder. There was no time for resentment when he was feeling exactly like she had. It didn’t matter that his last dismissal of her had made her give up on rekindling their teacher-student relationship.

 

Nothing really mattered at that moment because in the end Kakashi was still Team Seven and she couldn’t bear the thought of not being there for him at that moment.

 

She wanted to hold on to the anger and near indifference she had managed to feel towards him. She wanted to stomp her foot and childishly tell her shishou that she could heal the big idiot by herself, turn her back on him like he did her.

 

She couldn’t, of course. When she came back to herself, her feet were already guiding her towards the door and her hands were pushing them open. No matter what happened between them, the need to protect him—just like the need to protect Sasuke-kun and Naruto—was still there.

 

“They’ll make a full recovery,” she said, the doors swinging shut behind her. Her eyes immediately fell on the figure leaning heavily against the wall. His mask was covered in blood and his Anbu uniform was so dirty, it was hard to say if he had any injuries at all. “Hound-taichou,” she added belatedly, his mask glaring at her like it had on her first chunin mission and the codename coming back to her.

 

“Sakura.” His voice was scratchy and deep, like he hadn’t used it in a while and the hollowness in it sent a shiver down her spine.

 

Sakura took a deep breath, her lungs shaking with the effort. She didn’t really know how to proceed, she realised. He looked like he was ready to bolt and she instinctively knew that if she mentioned his teammates anymore he would be gone. No matter what Tsunade-shishou had said, she wasn’t in any state of mind to actually convince him of anything.

 

The only thing she could use at the moment was the truth. She was a medic-nin, he needed healing and they needed to get Shizune home.

 

“I need your help,” she said when he took the tiniest of steps away from her. “Shizune is barely conscious and Tsunade is still busy. I need help getting her home.”

 

Admitting any type of weakness seemed so contradictional to every effort she had put into not being helpless ever again, but she knew it would work on him. At that moment, the man in front of her didn’t resemble Kakashi-sensei at all. He was just an Anbu captain who had seen too much, done too much and that had survived another teammate. He would only respond to two things—orders and someone in need of help.

 

A tiny part of her rejoiced when he followed her back to the operating room, his steps as silent as hers, but mostly she just felt numb. Seeing him freeze at the sight of the covered body when she went to help Shizune up, however, made her snap out of it. Tsunade barely payed them any mind as she barked orders to the other medics to take the samples to the laboratory while she finished up.

 

“Sen—” Sakura took a deep breath. “Senpai.”

 

Kakashi didn’t move.

 

“ Hound-taichou. ” Her voice was sharp and commanding, the same one she used during missions while she lead her team of genin or chunin into dangerous situations. It was a voice that demanded to be heard, she had learned, and hear he did.

 

He shunshined to her side so fast, she could barely see him moving at all as he took her senpai into his arms, one behind her knees and the other supporting her back. Kakashi barely looked at her as he moved to the hallway and Sakura had to jog to catch up to him. Tsunade-shishou sent them a piercing look that Sakura couldn’t decipher before going back to her patients.

 

She felt like she should ask him to slow down, take it easy, he was still injured but she held the urge. She doubted he would listen even if she managed to speak up.

 

Kakashi moved to the window at the end of the hall and opened it with his elbow, his movements graceful even in their stiffness as he climbed out leaving only a trail of mud and blood in his wake. Sakura scowled, her breath shortening as she followed him through the village.

 

Shizune’s apartment complex was close to the Hokage Tower and it was late enough at night that no one was around but Sakura almost lost him twice if it hadn’t been for her tracking his chakra signature. She actually had to shunshin to catch up to him. He was standing on a balcony’s edge, Shizune still in his arms.

 

It took Sakura a moment to realise he was waiting for her to actually open the balcony door. She couldn’t help the glower she sent his way before she crouched and fished two lockpicks from her thigh pouch. It took a few minutes for her to get it right, but she managed not to break the lock in annoyance so she was counting it as a win.

 

Sakura opened the door cautiously, checking for any traps, and pushed the curtain aside when she didn’t find any. She felt more than heard Kakashi walking behind her and it was only because his arm accidentally brushed hers that she felt when it happened.

 

The skin of his bare upper arm slid against her shoulder briefly but instead of him moving past her, she felt him sliding down the length of her arm. She caught him just before he tumbled to the ground with Shizune but she didn’t expect how heavy their combined weight would be and almost got dragged down before instinct took over and chakra gathered at her muscles to help.

 

“Shit,” she mumbled, taking Shizune from his arms with one hand and helping his nearly unconscious body slid to the floor. She glanced at him long enough to establish he was still breathing before stepping over his form to find the bedroom.

 

She may have been feeling a bit vindictive that the stupid man had made her move so fast when she had spent the day at the hospital.

 

By the time she put Shizune to bed, the woman was waking up.

 

“Sakura-chan?” Her voice was weak and slurred.

 

“Yo, senpai,” Sakura gave her the closest thing to a smile she could muster. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Kakashi lives, would you?”

 

“Floor above mine,” Shizune blinked rapidly trying to wake herself up but it didn’t really help, her eyelids were still heavy and her speech slurred, “one window to the left.”

 

“Roger.” Sakura straightened herself up. “You rest now, senpai, before you get yourself into a chakra comma.”

 

And with that, she moved back to the living room only to find Kakashi halfway through the window. Sakura scowled but let him climb out by himself, only moving to grab him when he balanced precariously on the ledge. He pushed her half-heartedly away but she already had chakra on her muscles and his strength was almost laughable.

 

“’m fine,” he mumbled as she tightened her grip on the back of his vest.

 

“Uh huh,” Sakura replied as she channelled chakra to her feet to help them jump to the next level.

 

Kakashi’s apartment didn’t have a balcony but it did have an empty flowerbox in which they balanced precariously for a moment as he removed his traps, most of his weight being supported by her. Sakura payed careful attention to the several defence mechanisms he put and moved to put him inside.

 

Kakashi tried to push her back again and block her way into his apartment but he only managed to unbalance them both, making their entry even clumsier than necessary.

 

“Boss?” A rough voice called from the bed she had almost fallen into and Sakura recognized Pakkun through the moonlit room.

 

“Pakkun,” Kakashi sighed, leaning his weigh on her when Sakura righted themselves. “You’re not supposed to let strange people inside the apartment.”

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him but decided against saying anything about how she wasn’t a stranger. By the looks and sounds of it, Kakashi was even worse than she expected.

 

“Where’s the bathroom?” Sakura asked sharply, the question aimed at the ninken that immediately jumped to attention. “And the first aid kit, while you’re at it.”

 

“Floral Green?” The pug cocked his head to the side. “What’s going on?”

 

“Pakkun!” Sakura frowned at him. “Kakashi is delirious and he’s starting to feel really cold. I need to treat him so. Where. Is. The. Bathroom.”

 

“Over here,” Pakkun guided her in the dark towards a door to their left and turned the light on himself before opening a cabinet with his mouth and pointing at a white box. “The first-aid kit.”

 

“Thank you,” Sakura mumbled, her eyes already roving Kakashi’s figure trying to locate the source of his bleeding.

 

His Anbu uniform was cacked in so much dirt and mud she could barely recognize it. Finding an injury like that was practically impossible and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to treat it when it was that dirty. The medic-nin in her knew the obvious course of action would be to get him into the shower and Sakura had squashed the part of her that cared about decency long ago.

 

“What are we doin’ in my bathroom?” Kakashi mumbled confusedly.

 

Sakura guided him to the shower and turned the knob on before bending to help him in. She took of his chest guard while his hands pawed uselessly at her arms to push her away. He only succeeded in pushing himself under the spray of hot water. Sakura tutted as he gasped for breath.

 

“Stupid man,” she mumbled under her breath and continued to help him out of his outer layers in search for his wounds. A part of her still balked at the thought that holy shit, she was undressing Kakashi-sensei , but she shut it down pretty quickly. She was helping an Anbu taichou out of his uniform to treat his injuries.  

 

She had him down to his undershirt and was on the process of taking his pants down when she realized he was still gasping.

 

“Taichou?”

 

His body was shaking and his arms were locked on his sides as he let her hands work on his clothes. His head was turned to the side and slightly up, away from her and his chest stuttered on each harsh, uncontrolled breath he took. From her position at his feet, it looked like he was sobbing.

 

Sakura quickly got rid of the rest of his uniform, leaving him in only his boxers and undershirt before she moved to take his wrists in her hands.

 

“Kakashi,” she said more urgently when she realised he was working himself up in a frenzy. At this rate, he would hyperventilate.

 

The force in which he tore himself out of her grip was enough to startle her as he fell back to the wall. His head connected with the tiles with a sickening crack before he slowly slid to the floor, his hands ripping the hound mask out of his face.

 

Sakura saw his eyes fixate on his gloved hands, the Sharingan tomoe spinning wildly in his socket and his single charcoal eye with its pupil so tiny it was barely a pinprick. He looked like a wild animal, ready to attack at any sign of danger to his injured form.

 

With a strangled sound, Kakashi tore the gloves from his fingers and frantically began to scrub his hands under the heavy shower. His breath was faster now and Sakura knew she had to act. By then she could identify the source of all the blood—a large mark on his torso and a gash on his thigh—so she focused on that.

 

“Kakashi,” she said, her voice low but firm, “I’m going to heal you now.”

 

With hands glowing a soft green, she approached him, the water drenching her as much as him now. He was mumbling something as she set about coaching the cells in his torso into reproducing faster. His breath had slowed some, but his hands were still rubbing each other raw. She noted with relief his wounds weren’t poisoned.

 

The sight of him made her stomach drop. She knew very intimately what he was going through if only because it was a common occurrence for her too. Get back from a mission, establish everything she needed to do was over and proceed to break down quietly in her not so comforting room by herself.

 

Only Kakashi wasn’t by himself this time and Sakura was assaulted by a mix of emotions at that thought. She was glad she could be there to heal him but she couldn’t imagine how he’d feel once he actually came back to himself and realised she had witnessed him in his weakness.

 

A great shudder racked his body and it was only then that she realised he hadn’t been mumbling nonsense.

 

“Rin,” his voice was just above a whisper, so desperate and filled with hurt that her chest ached in response. “Obito, I’m sorry.” He gasped lowly. “ Rin. ”

 

She needed to bring him back. She didn’t know where he was stuck at the moment, what kind of horrific memory could make his voice sound like that, but she needed to bring him back.

 

“Kakashi,” her voice was louder now, her hands insistent on his. “It’s Sakura, we’re in your apartment in Konoha. I need to heal your leg. Can you understand me?”

 

It took a few more moments of her calling his name and holding his hands before he stopped mumbling and gasping and a few more before he actually looked at her instead of through her.

 

“Sakura.”

 

She didn’t know what to do. The moment was more intimate than she had fooled herself into thinking it was and it had nothing to do with the fact he was half-naked and they were both so close to each other. She was there in his private space, seeing him in a state she wasn’t sure anyone else had ever seen. She had never been in a situation where she felt so connected to someone.

 

It broke something between them, she realised. The way he was looking at her was not how he had ever looked at her before.

 

His eyes used to see right through her when she was a genin under his care. When he stopped being her teacher, he stopped even looking at her, it was like his eyes just couldn’t bear the sight of her and now.

 

And now, he was looking at her like she had made a grave mistake and saved him all at the same time.

 

“Get out.”

 

His voice was low and emotionless and it was with a start that she realised he must have been using his commander voice with her. It was a strange thought that he had the same defence mechanisms as she did, and that more than anything else was what made her step away from him.

 

It was like a spell had been broken and she could finally see what was happening.

 

Her uniform, previously speckled with blood and dirt was completely drenched through. Her hair was halfway out of her braid, matted against the side of her head from the water. Her hands holding his tightly. And, of course, Kakashi.

 

Half-naked Kakashi with a scowl on his face she had only ever seen him wear before in the middle of a battle.

 

“ Get out. ” His voice took a dangerous undertone that made her suppress a shiver.

 

But she hadn’t conditioned herself all throughout the last year to balk at his tone. With a scowl that rivalled his, she dropped his hands and tilted her chin to glare him down.

 

“I’m not done healing you.” Her voice was the same one she used on the field, the same voice he used on her as an intimidating tactic. The voice of someone who was used to being a captain on the field.

 

She only looked at him long enough to see the flash of surprise on his face before she lowered her chin, her own face flushing slightly when she realised they were both still very much inside the shower together.

 

Get yourself together, Sakura, she told herself. It was the only thing she could have done to clean up his wound properly.

 

With tense muscles, she moved her hand towards his leg—slowly and deliberately. He seemed to have snapped out of the fight or flee mindset from before but she knew how these things went from personal experience and she wasn’t taking any chances.

 

Her chakra tuned to his wavelengths effortlessly and worked on his cells efficiently. She didn’t take any longer than necessary, finishing the job almost perfunctorily. It was still hard to miss the way he tensed when their chakra mingled.

 

“Pakkun.” She turned and left the shower without another look at the man standing there. “He already passed out once tonight I don’t need him hitting his head.”

 

“I’ll call the pack,” Pakkun grumbled. “We’ll make sure he’s okay.”

 

Sakura nodded at him and adjusted her flak jacket. Her back was still turned to Kakashi and he made no move to follow her or even to acknowledge her presence any longer. She would give him the same courtesy.

 

“Make sure he doesn’t sleep in those clothes. If his temperature rises during the night or he isn’t awake in the next fourteen hours, call for a medic immediately.” Sakura looked seriously at the pug as his droopy eyes moved from her to the jounin behind her a few times.

 

She wanted to say more. She wanted to turn around and give him a piece of her mind. She wanted to comfort him and punch him in the face for pushing her away even when he knew she had helped. She wanted to reach inside his head and take out whatever memories had caused his breakdown. She wanted to never see him again.

 

Sakura wanted a lot of things and the need to do something was swirling in her gut so strongly, her whole body tensed for a second. It didn’t really matter, though, because in the next moment she had disappeared, not leaving a single bit of smoke on her wake.

.

 

Notes:

WHEW. This chapter was HARD to write, ngl. It's one of my favourites tho. Many important things happen in this one and I hope I captured all the emotional turmoil well enough haha Poor baby boio Kakashi, I love him so much and so does Sakura. I hope you guys enjoyed this one, I feel like I really need feedback at this point lol, I'm stressed.

We're living history, yo. What's happening out there is insane. My uni shut down completely and I teach English at a private school which also shut down so I've been working from home. I'm in the risk group so I've been staying inside my apartment, dutifully quarantine. Y'all, if you can, please do the same. I'm sooo tired but I'm pretty sure the next chapter is gonna come soon, I hope this update can give you guys a little bit of happiness during these though times.

Love you all, stay safe and take care of each other <3

Chapter 17: The Birth of the Wolf

 

The month had passed too slowly for Sakura’s liking but it had been enough time for things to go back to normal. Tsunade had cut back on her missions for the past few weeks and as a result she had a lot more down time than she was used to.

 

It was refreshing, really, to be able to finish some of her personal projects so fast. As a genjutsu type, working with that particular type of jutsu was always rewarding and the intricacies of the work kept Sakura on her toes. It had been nice to be able to sit down and read a new book or practice a new jutsu.

 

The seal on her forehead was coming along nicely too. Not that Sakura could actually predict how long it would take to perfect it, but she felt it was going great so far. It was always exciting, having something of that magnitude to look forward to.

 

Having more down time for Sakura meant she had more time to train, however, and she had used every second available to further her abilities. There was only so much she could learn by books and training with her clone, so the past month had been especially dedicated to meeting up with her friends at the training grounds.

 

During the day she would hang out with Tenten and Lee if they were in the village and when the sun began to set, she would meet Genma at the training grounds behind her house.

 

Their training had taken a weird turn lately. Instead of giving some pointers on her tantou work, he had actually started giving full out lessons and they were always on the most random of things. Some nights, he blindfolded her like Tsunade had taken to doing and proceeded to attack her from all angles in every possible way.

 

He taught her the best ways to infiltrate a place during the night if she needed to and how to kill someone with only her hands while still making it look like an accident. Genma guided her through the basics of blending in a crowd and even how to properly seduce a man that couldn’t be seduced.

 

Sakura had taken all of these lessons to heart, confused as to why he was teaching her those specific things but also unable to be anything less than excited about learning new things.

 

Everyday life had definitely fallen back into an easy routine of training, studying, occasionally meeting friends and ignoring and being ignored by the Copy Ninja.

 

Ever since that night, something had changed between them. Like a barrier had been broken, some kind of line blurred.

 

Hatake Kakashi had always been in her head this impossible figure, up high in a pedestal of aloofness and fame sectioned off by a jounin sensei yellow tape but that night had changed her perspective of things.

 

He was a man. A dangerous, broken, genius of a man but still just a man.

 

He was just a man that didn’t seem to have liked at all the fact that she had seen him break down in the privacy of his apartment, if how he was avoiding her was any indication. But then again, not seeing Kakashi had been the norm every since… ever since Naruto left them.

 

Sakura reasoned with herself that he was always away on a mission, barely touching his feet on Konoha’s ground for more than a few days at a time. Still, it was hard not to notice how he always seemed to be just about ready to leave whenever she arrived somewhere.

 

“Can you forge my signature for these documents?” Tsunade-shishou slid a pile of paperwork towards her end of the table without looking up from her own pile. “Give them to Shizune when you’re done.”

 

Sakura grumbled but did as she was told, briefly checking over the papers as she went. Most of them were ANBU reports that were classified, for the Hokage’s eyes only.

 

That was something else that had changed during the past month. Ever since Tsunade asked her to heal Kakashi’s team it seemed she had given up on acting like Sakura was only a chuunin and was now treating her like she stood on the same step as Shizune. Someone she trusted completely with basically everything that the village had to hide.

 

Sakura’s chest warmed at the realization but it brought dread with it as well. She had never wanted so much responsibility as she was getting now, it had never been her dream, really. She was a girl motivated by love and the bonds she had with people and her greatest wish so far had been to be a kunoichi that would catch Sasuke’s attention.

 

Things had changed so much, she was so much stronger yet still so weak. The very foundations of who she was had evolved. She was still moved by her love and bonds with the people around her but it had become so much more. Sakura was now the apprentice of the most powerful person in the village. She had responsibilities that she had never dreamed of having and despite not being something she had ever envisioned for herself, she found that she wasn’t just good at this.

 

She thrived at being the Hokage’s apprentice, be it doing the hard, physical tasks or even the political part of the job. Sakura was ready for it all, even if sometimes her self-doubt caught up to her.

 

“Tsunade-sama!” An ANBU woman burst into the room, her breath harsh, before kneeling on the floor.

 

“What is it?” Tsunade lifted her head from where it was bent over a stack of documents and frowned at her.

 

The ANBU stepped forward and handed her a letter.

 

“From the Fire Daimyo,” she explained, “it’s a matter of utmost urgency and he has a special request.”

 

Sakura focused on the paperwork in front of her but it was hard to ignore Tsunade’s murmured “Shit” when the woman finished reading the letter. Her curiosity was peaked but she pretended not to be paying any attention.

 

“Get me Team Ro!” Tsunade raised from her seat suddenly and moved to the window behind them, one hand moving through her bangs shakily.

 

“Hai!” The woman bowed lower before shunshining away, her body barely a blur.

 

Sakura gave up on her work and turned back to watch Tsunade pace. She seemed agitated and that made Sakura nervous. Whatever request the letter held couldn’t be anything good if her Shishou was so perturbed by it.

 

“Shishou?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

 

Tsunade turned to look at her and Sakura almost startled at the emotion in her amber eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose and lowered her head for a moment before squaring her shoulders and looking at Sakura once more. Her eyes were still softer than Sakura was used to seeing it, but when she spoke her voice was strong as usual.

 

“You have a mission, Sakura.” Tsunade pointed her chin forwards. “Go home and have a hearty lunch then report here in an hour.”

 

Sakura wanted to argue. She wanted to ask what the hell was going on and demand an explanation. She wanted to know just what the hell was going on.

 

Sakura nodded and shunshined home without another word.

 

The protein heavy lunch she put together went down her throat like cardboard and her mind blanked in preparation for what was to come. Seeing her shishou like that had really shook her but if she had a mission, now wasn't the time for any freaking out.

 

Her body went into autopilot—double the hidden weapons, tighten her braid, soldier pills inside her left pouch—as she tried to connect the random dots she had just received.

 

Tsunade's look was one she had never seen before but Inner supplied her an image that matched well enough. That first mission she was sent on with Genma, the moment  Tsunade had sent them off, something had crossed her face. And also when Sakura had come back and they were having a rare quiet night at home. Tsunade had sipped her spiked tea with something in her eyes that Sakura hadn't been able to recognise.

 

Now she knew what she had found in those looks.

 

It was fear. Fear and pride and melancholy and—incredibly soft—affection. The only reason Sakura could find as to why her shishou had looked at her like that was if whatever mission she was being sent on far exceeded the expectations of a chuunin.

 

The urgent feeling of the letter and the sheer fact that it was from the Fire Daimyo was another indicator.

 

Sakura tightened the hitai-ate on her forehead and rushed back through the secret tunnels to the Hokage Tower.  Tsunade was pacing the floor of her office when she opened the door and barely spared her a glance before moving past her.

 

"Keep up."

 

Sakura did. Even as they entered an inconspicuous door on the ground floor that lead them down so many flights of stairs she got dizzy. Even as she realised where they were going.

 

ANBU Headquarters was at the same time everything she was expecting and so much more. She figured there were many entrances to the complex but this one was guarded by two ninja, masked and cloaked, that knelt to the Hokage but said nothing as she activated the same type of seal that lead the to the Senju estate secret passage.

 

The corridor they entered was dimly lit and endlessly looking but this one didn't hold a genjutsu. Soon enough, they reached the end where another door lead them through to a wide room. There was a desk full of reports and a harried looking ninja sitting behind it, his orange hair standing on end behind his porcelain mask.

 

"Ho-Hokage-sama!" He squeaked, quickly getting up and knocking his chair back in the process.

 

"Back to work, Badger," Tsunade barked and the man sat back down once he righted his chair, faster than Sakura thought him capable after seeing him stumble.

 

She could feel his eyes following her so she smiled and waved cheerfully back at him and was rewarded with a splutter just as they went through another door. This one led them to another set of equally creepy hallways until finally they reached a door marked as ろ. Tsunade walked through it without knocking.

 

"Hokage-sama!" Three ninja chorused, bowing to show the top of their heads almost in unison.

 

The room held two black couches and a white writing board against the walls with a four seat table right in the middle of it. Another door on the wall opposite of where Sakura was standing was the only other remarking quality of it all. One ninja, clearly the leader, stepped forward and handled her a bundle. The other two sat back down, one of them a purple haired woman wearing a cat mask and the last... was that—

 

"The pink hair will draw too much attention." It was the man in front of her who spoke. He had mousy brown hair and a bear mask and his voice was devoid of any emotion.

 

Tsunade narrowed her eyes.

 

"Are you complaining about her hair or my choice of teammate for you, Tenzou?" Her voice was sharp and impatient and Sakura was surprised when the man didn't instantly back down.

 

"Forgive me, Tsunade-sama." At least he had the sense to bow again. "But the letter explicitly asked for Shizu—“

 

"Shizune is in Suna," Tsunade barked at him and he straightened himself up immediately. "Do you suggest we wait the three days it would take for her to get here before dispatching a team?"

 

"Don't be a dick, Tenzou," the other man drawled from where he was seating at the couch and Sakura had to fight a smile because yes, that most certainly was Genma. "The kid's got talent, she won't slow us down."

 

And just like that, Tenzou was nodding at her, like it didn't take much more than his teammate's word for him.

 

"Put the uniform on," he told her, voice giving nothing away.

 

Sakura didn't look around for a bathroom or changing room. She knew from the expectant way they held themselves that this was as much a test as any other. It wasn't clear if it was supposed to be an intimidation tactic or a way to see if she'd follow orders without question but she did know a challenge when she saw one.

 

Forcing herself to keep her eyes on him, Sakura stripped. This wasn't the time for self consciousness, so she let Inner push that to the back of her mind and unfastened her pouches as quick as she could. She was down to her bindings, many of her hidden weapons laid out at the table, when Tenzou spoke again.

 

"This is your uniform for the mission," he told her. "You're not an initiated member, so when we come back you're expected to return this and the mask."

 

"We'll show you where to put it, Pinky," Genma said, his voice as carefree as usual but Sakura glanced at him just quick enough to see his posture was that millimetre too taught for him to be completely comfortable with the situation.

 

"You are strictly forbidden from going anywhere during the mission or the headquarters by yourself, do you understand, Haruno?" Tenzou's voice was hard and emotionless like a rock and Sakura matched hers when she answered.

 

"Hai, Taichou."

 

"Haruno Sakura," Tsunade spoke clearly, her voice formal as she handed her a white porcelain mask marked red. It was a wolf. "This is your new identity. Under the mask you are sworn to protect your Hokage and your village with your life. Secrecy is paramount, you cannot speak of this to anyone outside the ranks and during the mission you should maintain discretion. Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai deals in the shadows and in the shadows only.”

Sakura nodded, chakra already washing over her hair and coaching a fine layer of genjutsu to darken her unconventional colour. She stopped when her shishou nodded in satisfaction and brought the tail of her braid to take a look at how it turned out.

 

Her tightly braided hair was a deep auburn colour, close enough to her original pallet that it was barely an effort at all to keep it as such. She knew that unless she suddenly lost all control of her chakra, it would stay like that.

 

“Do you accept the mask, Wolf?” Tsunade’s voice was terribly soft, carrying the weight of the moment and what it mean for Sakura.

 

“I do, Shishou.” She supposed she should have said something along the lines of Hokage-sama or Godaime-sama but by now Tsunade had beaten all types of unnecessary deference Sakura could have had for her.

 

She placed the mask on Sakura’s face and attached it with chakra.

 

“May the Will of Fire burn bright and guide you through the shadows.” Tsunade grinned at her, the same sharp one that kind of reminded Sakura of her nightmares but that always brought her comfort, and then she was gone, her heels clacking back to her office.

 

“We have a few procedures to go through with you before leaving, special signs and protocols that we may need for this trip but ultimately,” Tenzou sighed, “time is of essence.”

-

It took them two days to get to Kumo and Sakura had plenty of time to worry about the mission on the way there. Apparently, one of the daimyō's closest friends had a daughter that was kidnapped by a rival merchant three days ago. They were sure Matsumoto Rei was responsible for it and their mission was strictly to kill him and retrieve the girl but to not make any more of their involvement known. Everything was to be kept under wraps.

 

They were about ten kilometres away from the compound when Tenzou-taichou raised a fist in the air to stop them. Sakura cocked her head to the side as, one by one, her teammates' chakra signature disappeared. They were completely cloaked. It was instinct for her to match her chakra waves to that of a bee flying around a wildflower next to Genma's feet.

 

"That takes some serious control." Tenzou's tone wasn't particularly excited but the nod of approval he gave her was satisfying all the same. "From now on there will be no more speaking. You'll follow after Cat and Coyote will take the rear. Once we're there, there will be no time for any explaining so just take your cues where you can and don't break formation."

 

"Hai, Taichou." Sakura nodded at him, her whole body made of marble as the thrill of the mission settled within her veins and tightened her muscles.

 

The same feeling she got during that first mission with Genma came back to her. The pure professionalism and unadulterated danger that her teammates projected was like a boost to her skills making her that much stealthier and quicker.

 

There were about six sentinels, all of them skilled from what she could tell from their chakra signatures but none of them were any match to an assassination squad from the Leaf. They separated at one point, Yuugao and Genma following a path that lead to the basement and Sakura following Tenzou to Matsumoto Rei's room.

 

Sakura put a genjutsu outside the door as soon as possible and closed it silently behind them. Tenzou was already halfway through a set of signs when she turned back.

 

She barely contained her gasp when wooden poles—actual wood—sprouted from his hands and enveloped Rei's wrists and ankles after gagging him thoroughly. Wood release? What the actual fuck . She thought that was a Senju only ability.

 

Sakura stood there, wide eyed, for some time before coming back to herself. They had a mission to finish. Tenzou moved forwards quickly and before Sakura could even register the fact that he held a kunai in his hands, he slit Matsumoto Rei's throat wide open. The man had been awake but any struggling was fruitless against Tenzou-taichou's jutsu. He died with wide eyes and a wicked smile beneath his chin.

 

There was barely a pause before Tenzou was retracting his wood and turning towards her. Sakura, her horror pushed firmly to the back of her mind, simply turned and dispelled the genjutsu on the door.

 

On the other side of it, they came face to face with one of the guards, the genjutsu just fading from his milky looking eyes. Sakura was fairly surprised at how quick her hand shot out to grab his throat. It was both a move to keep him from screaming and also to make it easier for her chakra to slow down his heartbeat considerably.

 

She held his unconscious body like that before turning to Tenzou for further instructions. They had been told to only kill the merchant but the man could had seen them both.

 

Tenzou nodded slowly and it was the only response Sakura needed before she snapped the guard's neck.

 

They stood for a few beats just staring at each other after Sakura lowered the body to the floor slowly as to not make any sounds. Tenzou finally nodded at her again and began leading them back to the point they had split. Genma and Yuugao were already there, a slip of a girl beneath the woman's arm.

 

Sakura stopped in her tracks.

 

The girl was about her age, it seemed, but looked much younger than her. She was a shaking mess of bloodied blonde hair and pale skin marred by bruises and cuts. The only thing covering her seemed to be Genma's undershirt and there was blood and... something else running down between her legs.

 

Sakura was so enraged that for a second she only saw red. Inner barely controlled the influx of images that jumped to the forefront of her mind and it was with great effort that she reigned in her killing intent. The others were looking at her and she got the feeling that beneath their masks their faces held surprise and apprehension.

 

Objectively, she had known that it was a possibility that the girl would suffer many kinds of assault during her capture but, for some reason, Sakura had naively held onto the thought that she was only being held captive. She let out a shaky exhale.

 

With her hands raised in a sign of defeat, she approached the girl slowly before touching her light on her wrist. It was enough to make the girl flinch back but Sakura held on and soon enough she was slumping against Yuugao, dead asleep.

 

Yuugao took the girl in her arms and they resumed their previous formation, leaving the same way they came in. They'd been about four kilometres out of the compound when Sakura felt the chakra signatures moving in position to intercept them. They were the same two of the sentinels.

 

She knew that she should sit back and follow orders, keep to the formation and get the fuck out of there but the sight of the girl slumped on Yuugao's arms with blood still drying on her skin was enough to send her down the rabbit hole into a state of mind in which she could barely recognise herself.

 

Inner hadn't even attempted to curb the homicidal thoughts running rampant through her head and the killing intent that leaked out of her in waves. There was barely a second before she had donned her cloak and mask so fast and in the next she was already ripping the heart out of one of the nin with her gloved fist. The satisfaction she got out of it was fleeting but intense and then she was already moving to the next one, one hand grabbing his face and crushing it tightly while the other unsheathed her tantō and decapitated the last nin in one single movement.

 

Sakura's vision was blurry with how heavy she was breathing as the three sentinels fell to the floor in a heap almost simultaneously. There was a beat of silence in the clearing, broken only by her shaky gasps. They hadn't even gotten the chance to scream.

 

Her team surrounded her then, Tenzou brushing his arm against hers as he took point and Yuugao leaning on her briefly before she felt Genma's hands on her back. It was a touch reserved to set her moving and also to support her. Tenzou upheaved the ground and buried any evidence of the struggle, fresh grass grew with unnatural speed and then they were off.

 

No one spoke a single word even as they passed the ten kilometres mark and they only stopped when they reached Land of Fire territory.

 

Sakura felt like throwing up but she held it in, taking one shaky breath after the next and using Genma's hands on her as an anchor. She knew the others went about setting up camp but she just stood there watching the tiny steam they had settled next to rush languorously over smooth rocks and focusing only on the feeling of Genma's chakra mingling with hers through the hand he had sneaked beneath her uniform to reach her back.

 

"C'mon, Blossom," he murmured, nudging her forward towards the stream and tears welled up in Sakura's eyes.

 

He crouched next to the water and used a rag to gather some of it before slowly taking her hand in his and meticulously wiping it clean. Sakura didn't bother hiding the tears sliding down her face as she counted his strokes silently to herself.

 

Genma took her chin in his hand, slid her mask off to the side and brought the rag to get rid of the mix of blood and tears on her cheeks. The kiss he pressed into her forehead after was enough to make her choke on a sob.

 

"I-I didn't even notice I was—“ Sakura stuttered through her sentence another strangled sob leaving a knot on her throat.

 

"You shouldn't have broken formation, Wolf," Tenzou's words were that of a captain but his tone was so soft and caring that there was no way it could be seen as a reprimand.

 

"Don't worry," Sakura could hear the soft smile on Yuugao's voice, "we've all been there."

 

Sakura nodded a few times, squeezed Genma's hand once and brushed past Tenzou like he did before and kneeled next to the girl. She smoothed some of the matted hair on her forehead and moved her chakra into her system to get rid of all the cuts and bruises. It was over in a few seconds but it had been enough to further calm Sakura down.

 

Yuugao went to the stream to wet another rag and the two of them tidied up a bit of the mess. Sakura used her chakra to clear the girl's uterus from inside, making sure there wasn't a single sperm left alive inside her. It was one of the few things she could do for the girl.

 

"We can't give her back to her dad like this," Sakura said, her voice firm like the one she used with her subordinates even as she turned to look up towards Tenzou-taichou.

 

"I'll go look for some clothes in the next village over." Tenzou nodded at them. "Coyote, set up a perimeter, you have first watch."

 

"Roger, taichou," Genma drawled in his usual sarcastic voice and saluted Tenzou before disappearing into the tree line.

 

Sakura leaned against Yuugao as the older woman began humming a haunting tune under her breath. She watched as her hands shook when she smoothed the hair out of the girls face.

 

"We don't even know her name," Sakura whispered, regret for the girl's lost innocence sitting heavy on her chest. "I wish I could have helped her more."

 

"You did all you could," Yuugao's husky voice reassured her. "That's all that matters in the end," she said, then softer, as if only to herself, "It has to be."

-

The girl's name was Yuki, Sakura found out later on the next day when they reached the merchant's household and an ageing man ran over to them. Her name was ripped from his throat like a prayer and Sakura had to avert her eyes from the two of them embracing.

 

She would be okay, Sakura thought. Someone who had a father who loved her that much would get all the help in the world. Sakura had to believe that was enough.

 

The trip back was with a much heavier mood but somehow Sakura felt much more connected to her teammates. She could predict the way they moved much easier and it felt like she fit with them. It was a weird feeling, if she was being completely honest with herself. She had never really felt that with Team Seven even though she loved them fiercely.

 

They were a couple of hours away from Konoha when the sound of fighting reached their trained ears. Tenzou-taichou immediately adjusted their course and Sakura prepared herself for combat. Her muscles tightened in anticipation of a fight and she detected a significant chakra signature. It was a chuunin, she was certain, and when they got closer she could see a wagon with six men, all civilians but armed.

 

 It seemed like the chuunin was attacking a farmer's wagon but it was laughingly easy for Tenzou to subdue him and shackle his hands with wood. The sight of it still sent Sakura's heart racing but she chose not to address it right then. The man was wearing a hitai-ate. The leaf symbol scratched through glared at Sakura. She felt like she couldn’t breathe for a second, Sasuke immediately coming to the forefront of her mind.

The missing nin spat on the ground.

 

"Of course Konoha's dogs would be sniffing around me." His voice was nasty as was his smirk. "I'm surprised they didn't send their best hound. Friend Killer Kakashi too busy these days to hunt down fellow ninja?"

 

Yuugao was a purple blur before her hand connected with the missing nin's throat painfully.

 

"Shut up."

 

Sakura had never seen her that riled up.

 

The shock of hearing Kakashi's name faded while they continued on their way back but the curiosity nagged on her mind like an insistent itch. Something that she had pushed to the back of her mind suddenly resurfaced. During that rescue mission for Anko's team, the look they had exchanged when she mentioned Team Seven's bad luck was so heavy with... something. The same something she felt from her teammates now.

 

She was definitely missing a piece of information here. Something about Team Seven's legacy and even Kakashi's story. Maybe it wasn't anything that was strictly her business, exactly, but then maybe, just maybe, it might help Sakura explain Kakashi's way to herself. So far, she was positive that he had lost his genin team but Friend Killer Kakashi ? That seemed... ominous.

 

They went through the barrier on training ground 67 and Sakura watched in a daze as Tenzou slapped a hidden seal on a boulder and an entrance revealed itself to them. They wound up in the same corridor as last time and entered the room marked ろ again. Tenzou rummaged around for a scroll while the others filled out on the other side of the room.

 

"Go with them, Sakura." Tenzou took his mask off and smiled kindly at her. "You did good today, I hope we get to work together again in the future."

 

"Thank you for taking care of me, Tenzou-taichou." Sakura took her own mask off and gave him what she hoped at least resembled a smile.

 

He waved at her as she followed Genma outside. The door led to a large rectangle that resembled a dojo, similar doors lining it on all sides and right across from where they stood, a set of double doors led them to the changing rooms. The first part of it was the locker room where Yuugao instructed her to leave her uniform at a basket near the corner.

 

Sakura barely thought about stripping to her undergarments in front of them.

 

The three of them headed to the showers together not bothering to talk but also choosing shower heads next to each other. It seemed none of them wanted to be too far away from one another and Sakura wanted to stay with them that night. She wanted to let their proximity wash away the horrific things they'd seen during the past few days and the emotional toll it took.

 

There was still, however, in the back of her mind the itch that demanded attention. She couldn't ignore her curiosity anymore. She wouldn't.

 

So when Genma was fastening the bindings around his calf and asking her to meet them up at the bar, Sakura merely smiled slightly, gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek and asked to meet him in the morning for breakfast instead.

 

She had some research to do.

 

-

Notes:

Yo! This is being uploaded a bit later than I wanted but it's here! I hope you enjoyed this new development, hihi. I've been angling for this for quite some time, you guys should know that Wolf will be here for a while.

Now, remember Sakura isn't an official member of ANBU. This was an emergency because Shizune wouldn't be able to do the mission as requested and Tsunade couldn't just send any medic to a mission the daimyo requested. That being said, this opened another can of worms that being accepted into the Red Section had made a tiny hole last chapter. In this chapter, the can is positively open. Let's see what comes out of it.

Tenzou is a big teddy bear, but he's an even worse stickler for the rules than teenager!Kakashi. The way I see it at least. That being said he may come of as standoffish at first but Sakura definitely noticed he cares a lot for his comrades. Btw, ろ means Ro. So the room they enter in Headquarters is Team Ro's "meeting room". We know next to nothing about how ANBU really works and a lot of things we do know I don't like so I'll take as much of creative license as I see fit on this front, thank you very much.

If you guys recall, Kakashi used to be Team Ro's Captain during his time in ANBU. Back in the good old days before genocide was a thing, it used to be Kakashi, Yuugao, Tenzou and Itachi. I think. When he got taken off ANBU, I imagine the squad leadership would be passed down to Tenzou and now that he's back, I don't think he would be placed back there for one reason. He doesn't *need* to be. See, in the anime we see Kakashi doing a lot of Solo S-Ranked *jounin* missions. He's being carted around in all directions and I think his ANBU missions would mostly be solo ones or big operations with lots of teams. I dunno, it's just the way I see it. ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

We see Sakura getting a bit darker here and actually shocking herself with how easy and *satisfying* it felt. Also, Tsunade installed in her a real problematic habit of not bowing down to higher ups and a downright disrespect for authority. Oh, well.

Pay close attention to the timeline from now on, guys. Sakura is about fourteen and a half (yes, fourteen and six months give or take because I did a rough estimation of time and agonised over it for months trying to fit everything in my timeline. Appreciate it.) and it's been a month since last chapter. So, a month since she's been going over every single detail of her last interaction with Kakashi and trying to figure out what the hell happened to him.

Next chapter will be chaos.

 

On another note!!!

I absolutely love you guys. Truly. It amazes me how much love you give me and it really is a big motivator for me to write faster. If you got to this part of this farce of an author's note (it's more of a dissertation, really) please let me know what you think so far of the story. Do you like where I'm taking the plot? What do you wanna se more of? Please validate me? Thanks.

Chapter 18: Archives of the Past

The good thing about infiltrating her own village’s archives—if there was anything good about this situation—was that Sakura knew exactly where to find what she was looking for. The worst thing, treachery notwithstanding, was that she had no idea what she was looking for. She wanted to find out what had happened to Kakashi but she didn’t know what exactly she should focus on. Was there a single moment that changed everything about him or was it just various moments, piled on top of each other that had made him like this?

 

Her first stop was his personal file. 

 

She knew most of the things there, had seen them on his hospital charts, but some things stood out. He graduated the Academy at six-years-old and was already a jounin by twelve. Dai-nana-han. 

 

Their first mission with him leading, the same mission where the Yondaime proved his Legendary status by single handedly fighting a battle that ended the war. But they didn’t manage to do so without any sacrifices. She’d known that his Sharingan had been a transplant but she could never have guessed it went down like that. His teammate's sacrifice. On field surgery. Behind enemy lines by themselves. 

 

With shaking fingers, Sakura turned the page and tried to find what happened to his last teammate. 

 

Team 7 had almost been dismantled after they came up short a member but Kakashi still used to take missions with his teammate, Nohara Rin, a medic nin. The last mission they took together, the one where next to her name were the red stamped letters K.I.A., all of it was redacted. 

 

With a frown that barely conveyed how annoyed she was, Sakura skipped through the rest of his file. She confirmed he’d been put into ANBU by the Yondaime and later on taken out of it by the Sandaime to become a jounin sensei. Most of his mission reports were redacted. With a quiet sigh, she closed it. 

 

The archives were fairly secure even if she managed to slip past the guards easily. There was, however, a place where the Hokage had always placed their most important files. Nothing in there was redacted and everything was meant to be for the Hokage’s eyes only. Good thing Sakura had been trained by the Godaime herself not to take no for an answer. 

 

She moved silently through the empty halls of the Hokage tower towards the secret passage that would lead her home. Before she had moved there with Tsunade, the Sarutobi clan had taken everything pertaining to the Sandaime but there was one room in the whole estate that no one but the Hokage could enter. A secret seal marked the entrance, only one door and no windows. 

 

The Hokage’s private archives were meant to be impossible to penetrate and only the Hokages knew how to go past the seal on the door. Of course, that meant that Sakura knew precisely how to get there.

 

Sakura had only seen Tsunade activate the seal once but that was enough for Inner to remember how to replicate it and soon enough, Sakura was inside. 

 

There were tons of drawers labeled by years and the light was dim. The ninja in her raised its hackles at the thought of entering a place with only one exit but she ignored her instincts and moved towards the drawer she needed, the one marked with the Sandaime’s name and the date of his second rule. 

 

The report made her nauseous. 

 

She took a deep breath to still herself and tried to count down from ten so she wouldn’t cry or punch a hole through the wall. 

 

Not only had the girl—Rin, she reminded herself—been a Jinchuriki but she had forced Kakashi’s hand into killing her. Purposefully stepped right into the path of Hatake Kakashi’s signature move, Chidori. 

 

Friend Killer Kakashi, that ninja had said. 

 

She had made him kill her to protect Konoha. How fucked up was that. How fucked up was Sakura to think she would have done the same thing? Maybe she’d have been stronger than the girl, maybe she’d have taken her own life instead of strapping her teammate with the guilt and the memories of his fist going through her chest. The outcome was the same. The girl had died for the village as they all would. 

 

Sakura’s hand immediately went to the tiny vertical scar on her eyebrow. The wound she got from her first chunin mission had healed on its own and it felt like a physical reminder of that time. Everytime she looked in the mirror or her fingers caught the edges of it throughout the day, she came back to that night. She wondered if Kakashi’s scar held the same meaning as hers.

 

A lot of the things she knew about him suddenly fell into place. His difficulty in getting close to anyone, how he always seemed so aloof, so closed off. He lost everyone around him. He was put in a position where he could have been held accountable for someone else’s well being while he was so young and he lost everything, time and time again. Sakura was surprised he was still a functioning human being, let alone one of the best shinobi in the village. 

 

She placed the file back in the drawer with a newfound respect for him, her hands bracing her weight on it briefly. A part of her understood him better and whatever animosity and lingering hurt she had towards him faded away. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she could change him or that they had the type of relationship where she could reach out to him. Not after she saw him break apart, not after he had basically kicked her out of his apartment. 

 

Their relationship as a student who looked up to her teacher was long gone but she really wished someone, anyone, would reach out and help him. Sakura closed her eyes and silently added a new name to her nindo. She would make sure Naruto and Sasuke’s name didn’t end up in the memorial stone and that Kakashi stayed alive to see them return.  

 

She was pushing away from the drawer to slide it closed when she heard a click. 

 

Sarutobi Hiruzen had placed a hidden compartment in the drawer reserved for him. Curiosity made her reach for what was inside. This was a secret room that only those close to the Hokage knew of its existence and even fewer people were supposed to know how to enter it. Not even the council knew how to activate the seal outside the door. What did he have to hide?

 

The compartment was tiny and only held a single small black scroll. 

 

What Sakura saw inside was a horror story she could never have prepared for. It was blood written in pretty if regretful words. The Sandaime expressed his remorse on a few key happenings that left Sakura reeling.

 

There were so many things wrong that she didn’t even know where to start. With the Kyuubi Attack and how the Sandaime had simply followed Minato’s wishes and let him kill himself for the village while he still had a young son to look after. How the promise he had made to look after Naruto had meant absolutely fucking nothing. Her best friend had still been raised in orphanages that mistreated him, had barely enough a month to scrape by. All by himself. 

 

The problems started before that, even. Sarutobi Hiruzen had known of the existence of Root. He had stood by everything wrong that happened inside it even if what he had done was just turn a blind eye to it. They had almost continued the Third War because of Danzou’s actions in Rain and he had done nothing. 

 

There wasn’t even a side note of regret of sending Kakashi’s team to Kannabi Bridge. After he stepped down when he didn’t ask for reparitions from Iwa—weak, he was just so fucking weak —he was supposed to have put Orochimaru, Minato and Uchiha Fugaku as options for Yondaime but he didn’t. The Uchiha’s hate towards the village had started there and what came next made bile rise in the back of her throat. 

 

They had suspected the Uchiha for the Kyuubi attack. Kept the whole clan under observation. The Uchiha Compound, which she had always thought was a sign of their power and superiority was actually a segregation camp. They had been moved there to be better observed. 

 

When tensions—obviously—rose, Danzo had— Shimura Danzo had ordered Uchiha Itachi to murder them all. He gave a fourteen-year-old kid the choice of seeing his whole clan dead because of a civil war or killing them himself in order to spare his little brother. The Sandaime, the Council, all of them old fools had stood by and let that happen. 

 

I hadn’t known about Danzou’s orders until Uchiha Itachi reported back to me. It saddens me that such a burden had fallen on top of such a dedicated young shinobi’s shoulders but there was nothing that could have been done at that point. The Council wouldn’t back up the idea of putting Danzou under trial for treason and Konoha couldn’t afford that kind of stain on it’s history. The matter would have to be kept quiet. I would follow young Itachi’s wishes to let the Uchiha clan hold their honour. I stripped Danzou of his position in the Council and terminated the Root program and promised Uchiha Itachi I would take care of his little brother. 

 

Only he hadn’t. Sasuke had been kept in the Uchiha Compound where all his kin had their blood spilt and Uchiha Itachi, the most loyal ninja Konoha had bred, was seen across all the nations as the biggest traitor. 

 

All while Danzou had kept Root going on, let them experiment on children with Hashirama’s cells and fuck. Fuck. Koharu, Homura, Hiruzen. They had all known. Their inaction had killed thousands. 

 

Sakura didn’t realise she was breathing so fast until her vision swam with the beginnings of hyperventilation. She thought she had been put under a genjutsu for a brief, panic-filled second and even tried dispelling it before coming back to herself. 

 

She had to get to Tsunade. Had she known too? Sakura fled the room in a blur and only realised she had moved at all when she stood before her shishou. 

 

The woman was working through a pile of paperwork on their coffee table and Sakura felt an odd sort of feeling in her stomach. What else could Konoha have hidden behind the facade of the good village?

 

Anger was hot on her veins, she could barely see straight. Inner was in a complete frenzy inside her head, images of blood and despair kept playing in a loop and she felt like she could explode. She slapped the diary on top of the paperwork covering the surface of the table. 

 

“Did you know?” Her voice was low and dangerous and killing intent was leaking from her in waves. She felt the signatures of Tsunade’s guards outside shift in response to it but it registered in the back of her mind, unimportant. 

 

“What the hell, brat!” Tsunade stared wide eyed at her, her brush dropped and smudging a few of the papers strewn about. 

 

“Read it,” Sakura’s voice was so low and so vicious it sounded more like a hiss. “Read it and then look me in the eye and tell me if you fucking knew, Shishou.”

 

Tsunade had never been known to follow orders like that, specially from someone younger and less experienced than her but their relationship was far beyond rank. She could see that whatever was happening was serious. 

 

“Sensei’s handwriting…” She glanced from Sakura to the small scroll, her frown deepening. “I’ve never seen this before,” she said in a confused mutter but didn’t waste any time. 

 

She read it all in less than two minutes and Sakura watched as she paled, her hands clenching and unclenching before smacking down on their table with enough force to break it. 

 

Watching the surprise, the horror and shame on her shishou’s face had been enough to confirm to Sakura what she suspected. She didn't know. 

 

With that realisation, Sakura could finally begin to calm herself down. She forced Inner back, let her mold all that hatred and anger into her cloak and mask and took deep breaths. She realised she had closed her eyes when she heard Tsunade speak.

 

“I’m going to kill them.” 

 

Her voice was unrecognisable. Not in all the years Sakura had heard it reach different levels of anger had she sounded like that. In the blink of an eye, she was gone, the door left open in her wake. 

 

It took Sakura two beats to understand what was going on. When her mind caught up, her shishou was nowhere to be seen. She blinked slowly and considered for a moment letting her go before common sense won. They couldn’t play their hand so early into the game. With a controlled sigh, Sakura closed her eyes again and focused on her shishou’s chakra signature. 

 

It was moving fast across the training field, four signatures from her guards following her. If Sakura shunshined fast enough through the Hokage tower’s passage she could intercept her just on the border of the training field—

 

She paused. 

 

There were two chakra signatures following the five ninja. It was almost nothing really, just enough chakra that you would find in a rat, but it was moving abnormally fast and at a safe distance. 

 

Sakura realised with a start that it was the same technique Shishou had showed her to fool the elite, make her chakra signature like that of a small animal and no ninja would suspect it for moving.

 

It wouldn’t have raised any questions normally but everything about it felt off. Apart from just how fast the signatures were moving, Sakura estimated the distance they kept from her shishou’s guards to be the recommended for following highly skilled ninja.

 

It was Root, without a shadow of a doubt. 

 

Sakura had never moved so fast in her life. Her shoes barely touched the ground as she practically tore her way out of the compound, through the Hokage tower and finally reached the grounds just as her shishou broke through the tree line. The two women moved towards each other, Tsunade trying to side step her but Sakura was faster. She moved her arms around her shishou and squeezed.

 

When Tsunade started to pull away, she held on with chakra reinforced arms and brought her mouth to her ear. 

 

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” she whispered and received a snarl in return. “You were being followed, shishou. They’re watching us.”

 

The hands Tsunade had on her ribs to force her to back away crushed bone but Sakura held on. They stood there for a few seconds, Sakura using her chakra to bring down her shishou’s heart rate and noticing in a distant kind of way that she was now taller than her master. When had that happened?

 

Tsunade nodded and the girls parted before silently moving back home. 

 

They protected the place with the strongest privacy seals, designed by the Yondaime himself, methodically brewed some tea and sat around their broken table. Sakura set about fixing her cracked ribs.

 

“They need to go.” Tsunade’s voice was calm but still held an undercurrent of danger that brought chills down Sakura’s spine. Because they could. Between the both of them, they could kill them all and still make it look like an accident. 

 

But that wasn’t the issue was it? If they just murdered the old bastards, how different from them did that make them? No. They wouldn’t be paralysed by fear like the Sandaime, but they had to do this the right way. Konoha had to stop that vile circle of hidden ruthlessness at some point. They had to be better. 

 

Golden yellow met emerald green across the table, their tea’s steam rising between them as they shared the heavy certainty that they both could strip down Konoha of its bloody past and set it on fire. And they would, Sakura vowed, but they would do it the right way where nothing would be able to stop them. 

 

The only question was how. She could see in Tsunade’s eyes how this news broke her heart. She had believed in her sensei wholeheartedly, had followed his lead even when that hurt her and seeing proof of his carelessness must be hard. Even though she tried to cover it up, she was old enough to remember the teachings of her grandfather and to share his grand views for Konoha when she was a child. How far had they strayed from that path. 

 

“I’m sorry, Shishou,” was all Sakura could say. And then, “What do we do?” 

 

Tsunade took a deep breath, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. When she looked back at Sakura, her eyes were focused, her mouth set into a serious line. 

 

“Nothing, for now.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’ll tell me where you found that scroll, I’m going to put it back and you will tell no one about this, Sakura. Trust no one. I need a plan.” She sighed. “I need to think.”

 

They didn’t do any sleeping that night. 

 

-

 

In the morning, Sakura mechanically took a shower and put her uniform on. Tsunade was nowhere to be found and Sakura was kind of relieved. A big part of her wanted to help and solve this situation but a considerable part of her wanted to do shit all about it. She wanted to hide and let her shishou take care of this like she used to do when there was a cockroach at the house back when she used to live with her parents. She would wait on top of the nearest surface while her dad killed it. 

 

Sakura wanted to find the nearest surface but all around her things were unstable. She felt like she would fall if she tried to get up. 

 

It was in a haze that Sakura moved through her training routine. She added so many more sit ups, pushups and squats that her muscles were contracting painfully at the end of it. She barely felt it. 

 

She didn’t remember how she ended up at the memorial stone. She had no actual recollection of getting there or sitting down on the fluffy grass in front of it. The characters there were familiar but now her eyes caught on some of them. 

 

Uchiha Obito. Nohara Rin. Namikaze Minato. 

 

She blinked herself awake from her haze when a morbid thought crossed her mind. I wonder if Kakashi’s name shouldn’t be there too. 

 

Because, fuck, wasn’t that the truth. He was directly involved in the death of everyone in his team, and was held accountable for two of them. The man walked around the village like a ghost because maybe he was a ghost. He just hadn’t been declared dead yet. 

 

There were tears in her eyes that she refused to spill. Specially when she felt someone next to her. 

 

“You said we’d meet in the morning.”

 

Genma’s voice was lazy as usual, like he didn’t care which direction the conversation went. Sakura knew him well enough to see he was worried. 

 

“It’s still light out.” She didn’t turn to look at him yet, couldn’t see his face without spewing everything she had learned. 

 

“It’s six o’clock, kid.”

 

She did turn to look at him then. There was a tiny mark between his eyebrows that grew thicker when he saw the tears in her eyes that threatened to fall. She wouldn’t let them, of course, not then, not in front of that stone. But still. 

 

“What can I do?” Genma asked around his senbon, his voice low and worried now. He wouldn’t waste time asking what was wrong. He knew she would say that if she could. 

 

“Train with me?” Sakura’s voice was weaker than she’d heard it in a long time but maybe it was that that made Genma agree so quickly. 

 

“Anything.”

 

When they reached their usual training grounds and Sakura dropped her weights, it looked like they would take the fight seriously but that’s far from what happened. Sakura couldn’t land a single hit and Genma stayed in the offensive the whole time, letting her tire herself out. It didn’t take long. 

 

He made her dinner that night. Actually, he bought her takeout after shoving her into the shower but still, it was the thought that counted. He sat with her and watched as she ate it all with careful, calculating eyes. She felt kinda ridiculous sitting in front of him in her cute fluffy PJ’s but it made her chest warm to have him with her. 

 

She wanted to tell him everything. Had he known of the things she read last night? Most of them, that’s for sure. What did he think about it? Could they even do anything about it? Everything was just bubbling to the surface, like her throat couldn’t contain all the ugly truths of her village and she just needed to spill. 

 

“Genm—,” she paused. She didn’t know if she could do it. Paranoia had set in and she just couldn’t—

 

“Sakura?” Tsunade called from the living room. Genma immediately stood up and turned to face the doorway when her shishou and Shizune walked through. The blonde narrowed her eyes at him while Shizune clasped her hands worriedly. “Leave, boy.”

 

“Hokage-sama.” Genma said respectfully enough but there was no bow where there usually would be. He spared Shizune a brief glance, almost like he couldn’t bring himself not to and then his eyes were back on Sakura. 

 

“It’s okay. Thanks for today.” She managed to give him a small smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the bar.”

 

He waited a beat longer, his eyes piercing hers for a few tense seconds before he nodded and turned to leave. 

 

“You better remember it this time, kiddo.” He waved a hand before opening the back door. “Ja.”

 

The kitchen was so thick with silence, Sakura was scared she might drown. 

 

“Did you tell him?” Shizune’s voice was tense and accusing and Sakura felt betrayed that her senpai would think she’d spill like that, even if she had thought about it. The truth was, she wasn’t sure she would have told him if they hadn’t been interrupted. 

 

“ No .”

 

“Of course she didn’t.” Tsunade sat down at the head of the table with a huff, Shizune sat at the chair opposite Sakura’s. “I need a drink.”

 

Sakura huffed a laugh at that and immediately got up to get them some sake. Shizune didn’t even protest much against it and it was only after two shots that they spoke again. 

 

“We need a way to undermine the Council’s influence, little by little so they don’t catch up to what we’re doing.” Tsunade breathed deeply and held it in for a beat before letting go harshly. Another shot for all of them. “We need to discredit them enough that they couldn’t possibly oppose me without making it look like treason and that by the time we come at them for their crimes, they can’t escape going to jail.”

 

Sakura was finding it hard to breathe. The realisation of just how huge this was was finally catching up to her. The haze between her ears was gone and with it came the rush of adrenaline of pre-battle. 

 

“We also need allies,” Shizune said. Her voice was serious and her eyes narrowed. “But we have to be very careful of who we trust.”

 

Sakura felt something forming, the beginnings of a plan that weren’t anything concrete at all but it was enough for her to voice it. 

 

“We could have a bigger council.”

 

“Like Suna?” Shizune asked, her frown more evident. Tsunade only steepled her finger before her and focused her gaze on Sakura. That was enough to give her confidence. 

 

“The problem right now is that they basically oppose everything you say, Shishou, and Danzou still holds enough power with them that it’s like he’s still in the council, right?” She took a deep breath and used her tongue to wet her lips. “If you get more people on the council, people you can trust to back you up, that will do what’s right for the village, they won’t have such a huge influence.”

 

“Traditionally, we only have ex-Hokages and their teammates as part of the council, Sakura-chan,” Shizune said softly. “They are supposed to represent the Will of Fire itself, teachings of the past, guiding the future.”

 

“ Fuck tradition .” Sakura smacked her hand on the table hard enough to rattle their sake cups. “The only thing it brought us so far is treason and the complete annihilation of a founding clan. If it were for tradition, we wouldn’t have a female Hokage, we wouldn’t have the best medic nins in the continent and I wouldn’t be Tsunade’s apprentice.” 

 

Silence yet again fell upon them but this time Sakura’s harsh breaths filled it. Shizune had her eyes widened but Tsunade, well. Tsunade was looking at her like she’s never been prouder. And that’s what gave her strength to keep going. 

 

“We need good ninja in the council. Younger ones, ninja who still remember what it’s like to fight and bleed for the village.”

 

“We can’t have members of the council being on the active roster,” Shizune reminded her, “and we can’t afford to pull any shinobi out of the field right now.”

 

“That’s true,” Tsunade said, a fierce glint in her eyes. “There are some ninja who fit the job perfectly, though. For now, I need you to become the Hospital’s director, Shizune.”

 

There was a beat of silence where Sakura’s eyes widened and Shizune’s jaw dropped.

 

“Tsunade-sama!” Shizune exclaimed. “I couldn’t possibly—”

 

“You’ll have to,” Tsunade replied harshly. “I can’t afford to focus my efforts there while I take this on. I’ll take care of any serious cases but, for now, I need you to handle everything else there.” She gave her a sharp grin. “You can do this, Director.”

 

“I—” Shizune seemed to be speechless but in the end she managed to get herself together. “Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

 

“Enough of that.” Tsunade rolled her eyes. “This will take a while, years maybe. From now on, the three of us will be constantly observing those around us to determine who we can trust. When we are completely sure, I’ll decide if we bring them into the loop.” She rubbed her temples and sighed irritably. “We’ll need to take a closer look at Danzou and Root but that will have to wait for a while.”

 

“We can do this.” Sakura wasn’t sure if she was saying this to the others or if she was simply assuring herself but it made her feel marginally better when Shizune-senpai nodded resolutely. 

 

“I already know just who I’m going to add to the council first.” Tsunade smirked, the same tiny smile that brought shivers down Sakura’s spine and made her stand up straighter. It was a smile that was as dangerous as it was pretty and it made her have all the confidence in the world that they could pull this off. 

Notes:

... yo

This chapter fought me to the death, you guys. I had it written for so long but it just seemed off, you know? I thought about not going there, you see, ignoring the Uchiha Massacre and letting it be a kind of homage to Itachi's wishes just like the anime. It wasn't sitting right with me bc I think that the whole thing was just so stupid (let's not even get into the shitshow of bad decisions that was Shisui's death) and in the end, one of my best friends convinced me that I could write the shit out of this plot. Thank god for good friends.

So, yep, we're going there. Do you remember that this was Bad Idea TM on my files? Well, you can now see why. This story just *needs* to be written. Desperately.

That being said, I'm super self-conscious about this and I need love and cuddles so please review?

Stay safe alright? If any of you wanna chat about what's going on on your side of the screen and vent or maybe not chat about that *at all*, I'm here.

Chapter 19: Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai

Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to all frontline workers. Thank you for everything you're doing for us, truly. Thank you for going out there everyday so that we can stay safe inside our homes. A special thank you to Aura FitzBlack over at FFN who is a doctor and kindly left a review on last chapter.

I'm really glad this fic can bring some joy to people all around the world during these weird, scary times, be it for readers who are still having to go outside and risk themselves to do the essential work or for everyone who is isolating themselves at home.

We'll get through this <3

One of the first things Tsunade had said to both Sakura and Shizune about the shitshow that they came upon was “Be careful of who you trust.” It came as no surprise to her when Sakura told her a few days later that she’d begun following her teammates. 

 

She knew how much they meant to her, had seen it for herself how well they all fit together. She knew Sakura had never felt like she belonged—being a shy civilian at the Academy and later on with Team Seven—and seeing her actually be a part of a team that recognised her and supported her growth made her happier than she knew how to deal with. It was in the girl’s nature to care and being cared for must have felt amazing.

 

Tsunade had been sending her on many missions with Team Ro. It felt natural that Sakura reached out to them to make sure they were people she could trust. She knew it was only a matter of time before the girl took on the mask for good.

 

She hadn’t anticipated how attached she’d get to the squirt. 

 

It was something that she would have betted against if she had the chance, so there really was no surprise that it was exactly what happened. Sakura played a role in her life that wasn’t quite clear to Tsunade yet. Apprentice. Little sister. Daughter. It didn’t matter what labels they put on it. Sakura was her family as much as Nawaki had been. As much as Dan had been. 

 

Despite all the draining work she’d been doing for the past four months, Tsunade took the time to break out a sake bottle to celebrate the fact Sakura had looked into her teammates enough to assert they were trustworthy. The good stuff. 

 

After putting the hospital entirely in Shizune’s hands, her workload had lessened considerably but not enough to make any of this easier. 

 

She had worked day and night, going over the archives on anything she could use to incriminate the Elders and looking through ninja profile after ninja profile to see who’d be good enough to stand by her side. She’d known she’d start with Nara Shikaku from the moment Sakura had suggested the outlines of a plan but there was still a huge way to go. 

 

The first thing she did was establish many meetings with him. She’d ask his opinion on political matters, strategy issues and even once in how to deal with her personal accounts. She had to make sure those meetings were well known of and that the Root operatives following her always listened in. For the first part of her plan, she used the most powerful tool in her arsenal. 

 

Gossip. 

 

She planted seeds all around the village of how helpful Nara Shikaku was to her rule as Hokage, how trustworthy he was not only as a ninja but also as an advisor. Things naturally progressed from there and there was even talk of her grooming him to become her successor. 

 

One night, she sent Sakura’s team on a mission to retrieve him from his compound and get him to the Senju manor without Root getting wind of it. It wasn’t easy, that much was obvious, but Tenzou’s powers and insight on how the organisation worked had made it possible. 

 

On that night, she told Nara Shikaku everything she had found out about their village. The day before she gathered the elders to announce she was instating the Jounin Commander as the newest member of the Council, they sat around her newly bought coffee table and drank themselves stupid until they couldn’t feel the sting of betrayal any longer. 

 

The old bastards protested. Very loudly and publicly but, in the end, they couldn’t reject the idea without grossly overstepping and no one in the village was very surprised. They all knew and valued Shikaku. Having him in the Council, although it went against tradition, made sense after all. 

 

Nara Shikaku didn’t take missions outside the village because of his status as a Jounin Commander unless it was an emergency. Tsunade wouldn’t need to take an active ninja out of the roster, the Nara family head would simply have a lot of sleepless nights from then on. 

 

His ceremony would happen the following week and, as was customary for ninja about to retire from active duty, he was to take a last mission. 

 

“Haruno Sakura will accompany you as an iryo-nin.” Tsunade took a sip of her sake and shrugged when he refused a refill. She was comfortably seated on her desk at the Hokage tower behind a pile of paperwork while he leaned against the windowsill.

 

“This is supposed to be an InoShikaCho mission.” Shikaku smoked his cigarette even after she’d told him not to do so inside her office, but she granted him this defiance for all the responsibility she had dumped on his lap. 

 

“Yes, it is.” Tsunade smiled sharply at him. “She’ll meet you at the main gate at dawn.”

 

He grumbled, because of course he did, but left soon enough and when he got back five days later, there was a glint to his narrowed eyes when he sat in front of her. Tsunade knew how Shikaku worked. He would sit in silence and analyse her like a board of shogi until he was ready to make his move. 

 

She lacked the patience to play his games. 

 

“Out with it, Nara.” She didn’t give him more than a glance before going back to signing paperwork Sakura had done for her. The piles of work had diminished greatly over the past year but there was still much work to do. 

 

“Haruno Sakura,” was all he said, like speaking her name was enough. Maybe it was. Tsunade had no doubt hers was a name that would be spoken quite often given how far the girl had come, how dedicated and talented she was. 

 

“Yes?” Tsunade finally looked at him, eyebrow raised in challenge. I fucking dare you to waste my time, boy.

 

“Why isn’t she a jounin yet?” Shikaku scratched his chin in thought. “She has the ability and the profile for it and I went to check her records. She has more than enough missions and seven recommendations. That is more than enough to qualify.”

 

Something settled for Tsunade then. She had known that Sakura was a very capable shinobi for quite some time now, it was obvious to anyone close to her. She had seen her go from a determined if quivering young girl to a full fledged kunoichi that was downright scary. 

 

There had been a part of her, however, that didn’t want to let her go any further. She knew what came next, the path that all shinobi who excelled at what they did took. She’d get into a Bingo book, get a mark on her back and die young. Or she would ignore all the emotional toll being a top tier shinobi took and she’d end up dead by her own hand. Or she would end up just like Hatake. 

 

Quite honestly, Tsunade didn’t know what was worse. 

 

There was a reason she had chosen Nara Shikaku as the next council member. He was loyal and he was freakishly smart. He was resourceful and a strategist. He was a father. 

 

She knew that he was well aware of all the risks of letting Sakura progress in her career. He knew about all of the things that had held her back and he was still in favour of the idea of promoting her. Tsunade had to let go. 

 

“The council looks very disfavourably towards Sakura,” Tsunade sighed. “Sakura is civilian borne, there’s no clan backing her up.”

 

“Hm.” Shikaku scratched at his goatee again, his clever eyes seeing all that she wasn’t saying. “There are the Senju, Hokage-sama.” He got up from his chair and turned to leave with a wave. “And now the Nara. I’ll make sure the girl is in the next exam.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

Sakura neatly dodged a swipe at her head from a katana. She smirked slightly at the opening that left her but realised a little too late that it had been a trap. The moment she stepped forward with her tantou, a swift elbow made contact with her jaw. 

 

The pain spread all over her face but she was quick to recover. She let the momentum of the hit bring her forward and used it to turn on one leg while the other delivered a high kick to her sparring partner. Her shin guard met metal and they both stepped away at the same time.

 

“Pay attention, kouhai,” Yuugao sheathed her weapon and brought her hands to her hips. “That was an easy one.”

 

Sakura spat blood on the tatami beneath their bare feet and gave her a semi apologetic shrug. 

 

“If my tooth falls out, I swear to fuck I’ll murder you on your sleep.”

 

Yuugao snickered and moved to place her sword on the weapon rack on the edge of the training mats. They’d just come back from an extremely boring seven-days-long recon mission on a tiny village in their northern borders. It had been cold and damp as per usual this time of the year but utterly still. Team Ro came back with a lot of energy to burn out and finally get rid of the cold in their bones now that they were back in Konoha’s milder temperatures.

 

Sakura had roped Yuugao into training with her as soon as they stepped foot inside HQ and the girls had left Genma and Tenzou to write the report back at the office reserved for them.

 

“Let’s hit the showers, kiddo.”

 

Sakura put her sweaty uniform on the laundry basket and hung her mask on Yuugao’s locker. Later, Tenzou would bring it to administration to put under her name so she could pick it up when they summoned her for another mission. Since Sakura wasn’t an official ANBU member, she didn’t get a locker so she put all her stuff in her teammate’s.

 

It was weird, being at headquarters. Even after over six months of on and off missions with Team Ro, she still wasn’t quite accepted in the ranks by the other operatives. It made sense, in a way, her tattoo free shoulder was a clear indicator that marked her as an outsider. 

 

ANBU policy was that their operatives should wear masks at all times, even while inside the village. However, like any other place where people spent a lot of time together, these rules had become lax while inside HQ. Many operatives didn’t walk through the locker rooms fully clothed and most of them ate their meals at the mess hall without the outer layers of their uniform. 

 

Sakura somehow kept getting side glances when she dropped her genjutsu on her hair and let it take on its natural pink hue. People seemed to be weary of her and she even caught a few operatives putting their masks back on when they saw her.

 

It was a bit insulting, but she got where they were coming from. The reason they could be lax inside headquarters was because they’d all taken a pledge to protect each other and the Hokage. They were branded as a faction, almost like a cult, by the tattoo on their shoulder. Sakura was an outsider in that sense. 

 

It wasn’t uncommon for new operatives to come into the shadow forces like she did. Many young people were scouted and asked to join because of their particular skills, without having to undergo the exams the average ANBU aspirant would have to take. What wasn’t common about her situation was the fact that she still wasn’t a proper agent. It was almost like the Hokage herself was lending her skills from time to time but not fully committing to her placement there.

 

Which Sakura felt was warranted. 

 

If she was stuck in ANBU permanently, she’d have to dedicate much more time to the faction. Any mission they wanted to put her in, she would have to say yes. This way, Sakura was protected by Tsunade and she would be able to continue her training in peace. She was still learning and she felt there was a long way to go before she could safely say she was ready.

 

So Sakura would endure feeling like an outsider even if it was quite frustrating sometimes. At least her team got her back.

 

“I can’t believe you skipped on me.” Genma pouted from the couch and shot her an annoyed look when she came back with Yuugao in tow. “You know I hate writing the reports.”

 

Sakura moved his feet off the seat and dropped herself next to him, protesting a bit when he put his feet back up on top of her legs.

 

“I didn’t leave you to write the report, jiji.” Sakura squeezed his shins with her hands and grinned cheekily at him. “I left Tenzou-taichou to do it.”

 

She could feel her taichou’s glower before she even looked at him. Yuugao laughed and sat herself down on top of the table right next to where he was slaving away at a scroll. She leaned over to read it.

 

“And it looks like he did a bang up job at it, Wolfie.” Yuugao gave Tenzou two thumbs up. “Great job, Taichou.”

 

Genma barked a laugh and Sakura chuckled lightly at the man’s expanse. Tenzou-taichou was a big old softie even if he was scary sometimes.

 

The light atmosphere of the room was ruptured when the door that led them towards the outside corridor banged open. Sakura managed to contain the full body flinch that came with being surprised and tried to remind herself that they wouldn’t be attacked inside headquarters even as her hand subconsciously inched towards her holster.

 

A tall man wearing a dog mask and long white cape stood at their doorsill.

 

“Commander!” Yuugao greeted him, her eyes blinking slowly in confusion and Sakura tensed in her seat.

 

Genma seemed to sense this, or maybe he thought the man deserved the minimum of deference, because he sat up next to her but didn’t go any further. He pressed his thigh to hers subtly and Sakura breathed a tiny, almost imperceptible sigh.

 

“Is that for me?” The man nodded his head at the scroll Tenzou hadn’t stopped writing on. His voice was unbelievably soft and the careful, deliberate tone of it made the hair on her arms stand on end. 

 

To Sakura’s great surprise—because what the actual fuck, this was the ANBU Commander— he took off his cloak and hung it on the back of a chair before carelessly plopping down on it. 

 

“Hai, hai,” Tenzou smiled briefly at the man. “I’m almost done. There were no complications.” 

 

“Good.” The man sighed then took off his mask and let it drop to the table. 

 

Sakura couldn’t help but stare at him. He was older and at the same time younger than she expected him to be. His dark hair didn’t hold a single white strand and the only lines on his face were those tiny ones around his eyes but he looked… mature. 

 

If Sakura had to guess, she’d say he was anywhere between forty and fifty.

 

His eyes were dark brown and completely, uniably normal. Just like the rest of him. Like he’d put himself together in the morning with the sole intention of blending in, of looking just like the next person. Sakura couldn’t find a way to describe him without it matching the description of at least a dozen other shinobi.

 

“Haruno, right?” 

 

Her gaze snapped back to his and she unconsciously tilted her head to the side. Now that he was looking at her, she could see something behind his eyes. Something deliberate and old and maybe the tiniest bit mocking, like the whole interaction was a play he’d seen before and he was waiting for her to make her move to react accordingly.

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes and gave him a smile.

 

“Yoroshiku,” she said, polite but not too polite, slightly threatening if you looked at it a certain way.

 

The smile he gave her echoed hers and Sakura felt a chill run down her spine.

 

“I think it’s about time you became an official member of my little gang, don’t you?” His voice was light and Sakura fought the urge to sneer at him. He was annoying, she found. He reminded her a bit too much of the way Kakashi wore his fake squinty eyed smile around the village.

 

“Ah, I’ve been wondering why you hadn’t marked her yet, old man.” Genma moved his senbon around his mouth with a grin. “She’d wear the tattoo well, don’t you think? But maybe it’d look weird as she grows up…”

 

Genma’s insinuation was clear to everyone in the room. Even if he didn’t look the least bit threatening, his words held a clear warning. She was too young.

 

Sakura saw the look Tenzou and Yuugao exchanged but they didn’t speak up.

 

“No one ever had that problem before.” The Commander shrugged good naturedly. 

 

“Yeah, you’re right.” Genma leaned back on the couch and let his arms rest on the back rest. “You can’t get any taller if you’re dead, I suppose.”

 

The mood of the room got heavier with that but the Commander seemed unaffected. He turned his face from Genma as if he hadn’t spoken and busied himself taking a scroll from his pocket. He opened it and placed it on top of the table before inching it slightly towards Sakura.

 

“If you sign here, you’ll become an official member, Haruno.” His eyes locked onto hers intensely even as his voice remained light and airy. “You’ll have full access to every part of the facility at all times without having to be chaperoned, that includes the library and the mess hall. This will also mean you’re consenting to the ANBU seal being placed on your shoulder and the Wolf alias will be yours for as long as you’re alive.”

 

Sakura noticed he didn’t say for as long as she was in the forces. She knew no one really retired from ANBU. She nodded at him. He was hiding something.

 

“And my team?” She asked instead of what she really wanted to know. 

 

“You’ll be officially assigned to all Team Ro missions but medic nins are in high demand.” He shrugged again as if to say it wasn’t his call. “You’ll go where you’re needed.”

 

Sakura hummed.

 

“Does Tsunade know about this?” 

 

Ah, right on .

 

She knew she’d caught him when he took a tiny breath to start his next sentence. It was the same tick Kakashi had, a slight deliberate breath as if they were preparing to speak and an immediate blink. 

 

It wasn’t much to go by but Tsunade hadn’t said anything about this to her. In fact, she seemed to want her out of ANBU as soon as possible. Now, how to play this .

 

“Of course,” he said, his smile growing slightly bigger, making his eyes crinkle more.

 

“Of course,” Sakura repeated, smiling amusedly at him. She watched as he stayed completely still, not letting his posture betray how annoyed he was that she had seen through him. Sakura contained her smile.

 

For what reason could he possibly want her in his ‘little gang’? So far, she’d only been taking missions coming directly from Tsunade to Team Ro, it was safe to say that the Commander had no say on that. She just didn’t quite understand why he’d want complete control over her. 

 

She wasn’t a jounin yet, so she’d have to take extra ANBU training if she was to keep up with whatever mission required a medic nin. She was also a ticking time bomb, if anything happened to her, Tsunade would immediately unleash hell on him.

 

Sakura dropped her act and stared seriously at the man in front of her. She looked deep into his eyes, Inner taking in every detail on his face.

 

“Why do you want me?” She asked him, her voice barely above a whisper, as if she was talking to herself.

 

The tension in the room was so thick, she heard Genma’s breath hitch as he sat up straighter. There was a beat of silence before the Commander dropped his smile as well.

 

“You’re skilled,” he said simply. “You could do a lot of growing here. Your talent wouldn’t be wasted.”

 

“I’d be trapped,” Sakura countered, her eyes narrowing minutely. “And my talent isn’t being wasted where I am.”

 

“The council is holding you back and we both know it.” His smile was back, just as fake as before and the similarities to Kakashi’s were uncanny. Sakura shrugged.

 

“Being where I am lets me follow through with my goals,” Sakura countered. “I would be stuck here otherwise.”

 

“You mean getting Uchiha Sasuke back.” The way he said it, so simply, almost callously made her hackles rise. There was absolutely nothing simple or easy about the Sasuke situation and it made her want to hit his overly normal face. She wondered if he knew about the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre, he had been Uchiha Itachi’s superior afteral.

 

“And Uzumaki Naruto.” Sakura fought to keep the aggression out of her voice. “Having them both safe inside Konoha, by my side.”

 

The Commander stretched his legs in front of him and considered her for a moment. Sakura was beginning to really dislike the guy even if his resemblance to Kakashi were slightly endearing in an annoying way.

 

“You could have access to all our knowledge.” He nodded to himself, like he was trying to find the right way to go about this and had just seen an opportunity. “You could be trained by the best of the best in here. You could become the best of the best in here. Don’t you think you’ll need a lot of skill to follow through with your goals?”

 

Sakura scowled at him. He’d found exactly the right buttons to press. He’d seen through her and rightly assumed her need for validation and her never ending thirst for knowledge and skill aprimoration. He’d played her overwhelming love for her teammates like a fiddle. He took a shot and Sakura learned that his aim was ruthless.

 

She scoffed, got up and stretched lazily.

 

“This is getting tiresome.” She moved closer to the man and he raised his eyebrows in a look of genuine surprise. “I won’t take any missions that Tsunade herself hasn’t specifically approved. I’m her apprentice before I’m Wolf.”

 

She could see Tenzou and Yuugao smiling to her left but her focus was still on the man in front of her. His face was serious as he gazed up at her.

 

“Deal.” 

 

He stretched his hand out to her but Sakura didn’t take it. Instead, she picked up Tenzou’s discarded pen and handed it to him.

 

“Write it down, sign it and mark it with your blood and then we have a deal.” 

 

The Commander chuckled and there was a genuine smile on his face when he did as he was told.

 

“I like you, kid.” He used the tip of a kunai Sakura hadn’t seen him handle to pierce the tip of his thumb. “You remind me of someone.”

 

“Likewise,” Sakura scoffed, making sure he knew that wasn’t a good thing.

 

Sakura signed it herself and marked it with her blood before nodding at him. Genma groaned and Sakura turned to see him pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“You’ll be the death of me, Petal.”

 

Sakura smirked.

 

“If you don’t die of old age first, Jiji.”

 

The Commander barked a laugh and Sakura was surprised at how warm it sounded. He got up and she had to fight a flinch from how tall he felt compared to her.

 

“Go get your mask and a uniform and head towards the training mats when you hear the cong.” He nodded at the door leading towards the main square where Yuugao and her had just come from. “Yuugao.”

 

“Haai,” Yuugao jumped down from the table and offered the Commander a bow before steering Sakura by her shoulders.

 

“He’s annoying,” Sakura said, knowing full well that they were still well within their hearing range, and the door closed the laughter of the men inside. “Reminds me of Kakashi a bit too much.”

 

For a second, she thought she’d offended Yuugao as she remembered how fiercely the woman had defended Kakashi against that loudmouth missing nin. They entered the changing rooms and Sakura began to strip before she heard Yuugao give a soft snort.

 

“I guess he does remind me of senpai in a way.” Her voice was soft and contemplative as Sakura put her uniform back on. “It makes sense doesn’t it?”

 

“Does it?” Sakura shot back, an incredulous look on her face as she tightened her pouches. 

 

“Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know that,” Yuugao said, her eyes widening a bit. “Sometimes I forget you’re so young, Wolfie-chan.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes at the nickname and gave her senpai a deadpan look. Yuugao laughed but answered without pretenses.

 

“Kakashi-senpai was just fourteen when he got into ANBU,” she explained. “The Commander was the one who personally trained him before he took over as captain of Team Ro.”

 

Huh. 

 

That explained everything and nothing at the same time. She wondered how many of Kakashi’s quirks she’d deciphered through the years she’d find in the Commander and just how she could play that to her advantage.

 

Before she could question her senpai any further, a loud cong echoed through the HQ. It was time.

 

The ceremony was over quicker than she’d expected. It seemed like all the shinobi inside headquarters were lined up before the Commander as he branded the dark red seal on her shoulder. 

 

It hurt like fuck and Sakura was glad for the mask over her face because it hid her grimace. She thought, not for the first time, that maybe she understood why Kakashi wore his everyday.

 

The mark looked like blood on her porcelain skin.

 

The Commander explained that the seal contained a special kind of jutsu in case she got caught. Some missions were done without the possibility for extraction and she was to activate it if she thought the enemy had a chance of killing her. Immediate termination of her life and destruction of her body.

 

The ceremonial words the Commander said echoed Tsunade’s the first time she was assigned a mission with Team Ro. Sakura felt like those words would be forever ingrained in her soul.

 

Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai deals in the shadows and in the shadows only. May the Will of Fire burn bright and guide you through the shadows.

 

Sakura changed back to her day clothes, glad that she’d chosen a long sleeved shirt that day. Distantly, she wondered when she’d find the time to buy new clothes that covered her tattoo during summer time.

 

She put her uniform and mask inside a bag Yuugao provided her and started making her way out of HQ. She’d have to stop by the store to buy more sake before she went home to tell her shishou the news. She would not be happy.

 

Notes:

Let me tell you, this chapter was a surprise to myself hahahah I had no idea I was creating this Commander character until the words started coming to me. He's a real character in the anime btw, I just gave him a bit more depth. And some weird relationship to Kakashi lol more on that later maybe?

Nara Shikaku!!! Some of you guessed right on that one hahaha I didn't want to make y'all wait so long for another update after last chapter's bomb so I hope you liked it :)

For the reviewers who guessed right, you guys can leave another review in this chapter asking for a prompt and I'll write it as soon as I can!!! UHUUUU It can be anything Kakasaku!!! It can be a scene in this universe I created or a cOmPlEtE AU (college teacher AU, soulmate AU, coffee shop AU, YOU NAME IT DEAR READER!) You can also request it over at Tumblr where I'm juliette-deschemps, just make sure you put your username so I know who you are hehe

Y'all have no idea how last chapter's reviews hit me right in the feels. You guys made me cry so hard hahaha I wanted so bad to just sit down and answer every single one of them but for some reason I couldn't??? I don't know what happened, I just got really overwhelmed every time I typed something down and that doesn't make any sense because I love every single word you guys wrote for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

You're the best readers someone could hope for and you really make my day, specially during this fucking quarantine that I'm feeling I'm about to go iNsAnE. 51 days and counting.

This chapter! Personal promise! Reply to every single review I get even if it is with a very creepy tonelessly written i love you.

Chapter 20: Loyalty In The Eyes of The People You Love

Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to little_bean who reviewed every single one of my chapters as she read them. Let me just say this, it is never ever EVER annoying when you guys do that, okay? When you guys get really excited about this story and start guessing things in the comments or when you leave a lot of words for me to read. I love every single one of them.

 

Little_bean won a prompt for her efforts hahaha so expect a short ks one-shot very soon <3

 

(P.S.: Go check out her ks fic! It's called "looking for the truth"!!)

Sakura got home that night when the sun was setting, Tsunade’s shouts echoing in her head. The woman was not happy with the Commander going behind her back like that. 

 

She confirmed, after quite a bit of cursing, that he probably wanted her skills in ANBU because it was rare to see a medic nin so skilled in combat like her. Tsunade had put a new crack in her office table but in the end she had barked a laugh when Sakura explained the bargain she made and there was pride in her eyes and maybe something more. Like she had more to say but was holding back for some reason.

 

Instead of actually saying what Sakura could clearly see she wanted to say, Tsunade had slapped her hands on top of her table making the abused wood creek threatenly, created a privacy seal and started laying out what she knew of the Commander.

 

Usui Toshio, forty-nine years old, widower, no children. He had a tragic backstory much like everyone else, parents died in combat before he graduated from the Academy. He fought in the Second Shinobi World War and during the third was already an ANBU captain. Apparently, he’d been the Commander for ANBU forces ever since just before the Kyuubi attack where he lost his wife. 

 

“Do you think he’s trustworthy?” Sakura had asked her because, in the end, this guy was a serious player in their game. In most meetings between the daimyo and the Hokage, the council was present but so was the ANBU Commander. He had a voice, politically speaking, and on top of that, maybe the most important part was that this guy was supposed to be the leader of the force that was created to act under the Hokage specifically, to protect Tsunade with their life if need be. If he wasn’t safe, they would have to knock him down.

 

“I checked he’s not in Danzou’s pocket.” Tsunade had looked far away at that point and Sakura wondered what memory she had gotten lost in. “I also knew his wife. He used to be one of the good ones. That being said, a lot of shit has happened since then and while I do trust him as a shinobi, I don’t trust him with everything.” She had looked back at Sakura with finality. “He’s not Danzou’s but I’m not bringing him into the loop anytime soon.”

 

The message was clear. He could be trusted, Sakura could follow his leadership, but Tsunade wasn’t about to spill all her secrets to the man. 

 

It had alleviated some of Sakura’s worries. She didn’t like the fact that he’d gone behind Tsunade’s back but in a way, knowing that he was committed to the village and not Danzou had made her appreciate the fact that he did. 

 

It showed her that he was a man who wasn’t above breaking the rules to do what was right by his shinobi. In the same way that Tsunade didn’t completely trust him, he probably didn’t completely trust her either. He was playing it safe. Getting a medic like her inside his ranks wasn’t about anything else but keeping his shinobi safe in the end, and she respected that. 

 

She respected that at the same time that she filled away that bit of information to be used later. Usui Toshio was a man who cared, even if it didn’t look like it at first glance.

 

In the end, Tsunade had agreed that ANBU would be good for her but there had been promises of increasing her workload because of her little stunt. You want more, girl? I’ll give you more.

 

Sakura shuddered thinking what was ahead of her. 

 

She knew it had been the right decision, even if she did feel a bit like she’d signed her soul over to the devil. The kind of skill aprimoration ANBU provided was something she couldn’t achieve as a simple Leaf Chunin, even with all her perks as Tsunade’s apprentice. She also knew that being in the shadow corps might make some things easier when it came to taking Danzou and his Root operation out.

 

With a sigh, Sakura opened the front door to the Senju mansion, letting her shoulders drop when it closed behind her and she felt the privacy seals activate.

 

“Tadaima,” she muttered, not expecting a reply.

 

“Okaeri, stranger.”

 

Sakura paused in her next step, her whole body tensing. There was a beat where Sakura contemplated how tired she must have been to not have noticed another chakra signature from inside the house and in the next, a kunai was in her hands as she turned towards the living room.

 

Sitting on her sofa, were Tenten and Ino.

 

With a harsh expel of her next breath, Sakura holstered her weapon and crossed her arms at them. Both girls looked at her amusedly, Tenten raising her hands in mock surrender.

 

“I was this close to taking both your heads off.” Sakura pinched her fingers together and stepped closer to them.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Tenten placated her before Ino could add tinder to the fire. “We would have let you know we were having a pajama party if we could actually find you anywhere in the village, you know.”

 

Sakura fought the urge to freeze at the offhand comment. She had been admittedly gone from the social scene for a while there, her missions and unofficial training with Team Ro taking most of her time. It would take a while for her to settle into her new routine, she was sure.

 

Thankfully, they didn’t press the matter, Ino just hugged her tightly before steering her towards the couch and forcibly pushing her to sit down. She pointed to a bunch of items on the coffee table.

 

“Cake, hot chocolate, sake and corny movies.” Ino sat down on one side of her and Tenten on the other.

 

“Why are we having a breakup date night?” Sakura said, one eyebrow raised and her hands grabbing for the sake before any of the girls could get to it first.

 

“Ino’s last beau broke up with her,” Tenten snorted.

 

“I’ll have you know, I was the one doing the breaking up, thank you very much” Ino sniffed primly and reached for the movie selection. “Which one?”

 

“This one.” Sakura pointed to the pinkest of the titles. “You broke up with Yosuke?”

 

“ Daisuke,” Ino and Tenten said at the same time and the older girl continued, “Ino broke up with Yosuke about two weeks ago.”

 

“Honestly, Sakura, do keep up.” Ino shot her a fake glare before moving to put the movie on. Sakura snickered and raised her hands in defeat.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she laughed. “It’s hard to keep track of so many.”

 

Sakura dodged a hot chocolate soaked marshmallow and side hugged Ino when she sat back down.

 

“You would have been invited to that breakup date night if you were anywhere to be found.” Ino looked at her pointedly, her pupiless eyes staring right into Sakura’s soul.

 

Sakura fought the urge to gulp guiltily and forced herself to keep staring into her friend’s eyes. Of course, Ino wouldn’t let it go. She’d just let Sakura think she was safe from any further interrogations and wait until she could pounce. Sakura almost pouted.

 

“I was away on a mission,” she said simply. The best lies always came from half truths, after all.

 

“Right,” Tenten said slowly. “We thought you might be, so we checked the mission roster.”

 

The two girls shared a look that Sakura immediately saw through. Shit. This had been an ambush from the beginning and Sakura had walked right into it.

 

Sakura took a deep breath but before she could even begin to formulate a plan to escape, Tenten was hugging her around her middle, pinning both her arms to her torso while Ino attacked her.

 

“Hey!” Sakura yelled as Ino stretched the collar of her shirt so far down it made its way all the way past her shoulder. Sakura froze when Ino gasped.

 

Shit, shit, shit.

 

Her first day as an official ANBU operative and she was already revealing herself to people.

 

“I knew it!” Ino pointed an accusing finger at Sakura and Tenten let her go. “I knew you were doing something shady! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

 

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Sakura sighed. “This was supposed to be classified information, you nosy bitch.”

 

Ino and Tenten looked at her and neither girls said anything for a few seconds. Sakura opened her mouth to explain things, to tell them the story behind her promotion but nothing came out. She wasn’t sure where to begin. 

 

Sakura trusted the girls implicitly. She knew that if it came down to it, both of them would support her in her fight against the Council and Danzou and that they would understand why she needed to go into ANBU.

 

But the truth was she didn’t want to tell them. 

 

Not yet, at least. The Rookies weren’t inexperienced by any means but there was a certain kind of innocence to them that Sakura envied. She knew the world they lived in would eventually knock them down to the dirt and force them to grow up like it did her but if she could just for a little while protect that innocence, for as long as she could, she would.

 

“I got offered a place on a team there.” Sakura shrugged and then laughed good naturedly. “Everything is confidential, though, so don’t even try to get something out of me, you hear me?”

 

Ino looked at her like she was either really happy or really scared and for a second it looked like she might start crying, which made Sakura’s eyes widen. Before she could even think of something to say to stop the waterworks, Tenten stepped in.

 

“Don’t freak out, Ino-chan.” She smiled reassuringly. “Oji-san says that ANBU is harsh but that they all become something like brothers and sisters in there, that they protect each other. Sakura-chan is not alone.”

 

Sakura gaped at her. The owner of that weapons shop and the old man who adopted Tenten after her Academy graduation has been telling her about ANBU?

 

“How would Oji-san know that?” Sakura wondered out loud and Tenten laughed.

 

“He’s a retired ANBU captain!” She said proudly. “A lot of those masked guys come around to buy things from him too, so… I kind of pestered him until he told me a few stories about his time there.”

 

“Okay.” Ino nodded slowly and took a deep breath before letting it out harshly. “Well, at least you opened up a whole new pool of hot guys to explore. This time you might actually manage to find yourself a boyfriend.”

 

Sakura punched her on the shoulder and laughed along with Tenten.

 

“Shut up, Ino!”

 

The girl shrugged unapologetically and reached towards her hot chocolate. She poured an alarming amount of sake into it and turned to Sakura assessingly.

 

“You’ll need new summer clothes to hide that tattoo.” Ino nodded to herself and turned back to the movie. “We’ll go out this weekend to do some shopping. Maybe Hinata will be able to join us this time.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Sakura said, immensely glad they were past the subject of ANBU. “Why isn’t she here today?”

 

“Something about feeling bad about showing up to your house without you inviting her.” Ino waved her hand and scoffed. 

 

“You mean that she actually has manners, unlike you two heathens.” Sakura teased them but Ino just shrugged and Tenten laughed.

 

“Alright, let’s make this night interesting!” She pumped her fist in the air much like Lee sometimes did. “Every time the main couple eye-fuck, we take a shot!”

 

The girls snickered and Sakura settled herself for a night of relaxing. She wouldn’t fall asleep, the chance of her having one of her episodes was too high, but she would let herself wind down and enjoy her friends’ presence. 

 

That night, as she lay in her futon with both girls pressing against her sides, Sakura wished she could protect them from the ugly truths of the village. She knew it was unreasonable, that they were ninja just like her, but still she hoped. The only thing she could do, she concluded when the sun was already peeking through the horizon, was make sure she was strong enough to protect them.

 

Sakura got up slowly and, almost without thinking, put on her shishou’s genjutsu to make the shadows beneath her eyes disappear. As she went around cooking the girls breakfast, she promised to herself that no matter what, she would keep getting stronger so they could retain a bit of their innocence.

 

Even if it meant signing a deal with the devil. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura opened her eyes to the first ray of sunlight coming through her window. She blinked blearily for a few moments, her thoughts lazy as she stretched on her futon. With a sigh, she forced herself to get up.

 

She had never been a morning person. Sure, she was used to getting up at the crack of dawn now and was beginning to acquire the ability to sleep wherever she was at any given time during her missions with Team Ro, but waking up never really came naturally to her when she was relatively safe inside the village.

 

On Sundays, she took special time off her routine to just wake up late . It was silly, but she quite enjoyed the feeling of waking up to lunch sometimes.

 

Sakura went about putting her futon away and jumped headfirst into a cold shower before she could convince herself that she didn’t really need to do anything that day. When she got to the kitchen, sans her flak jacket but otherwise with her uniform complete and with her hair still drying around her shoulders, Tsunade was already there.

 

“Morning, Shishou,” Sakura said before moving to the fridge to get them something to eat. 

 

Tsunade just grunted in response while she nursed her cup of coffee because while Sakura wouldn’t consider herself to be a morning person, Tsunade was another category in itself. She couldn’t even put words together before she had at least some caffeine in her veins.

 

Her drinking habits also didn’t help much. Since they’d taken on this mission, Sakura noticed that her shishou seemed to drink less, mainly because there was so much to do she just simply didn’t have the time. Her sense of duty towards the village spoke louder than her vices most days. 

 

However, that didn’t mean Tsunade wasn’t one to indulge. It was common to find the woman working on paperwork and drinking sake late at night and that made mornings a particularly hard battle to fight.

 

They ate in silence before each of them went on their way. Shizune came in right before Sakura left, a pile of paper on her hands and a frazzled smile on her face.

 

Sakura gave the women twin kisses on their cheeks and resisted the urge to sigh as she made her way to the training field while tying her hair in her usual braid. From the looks of it, today would be a busy day at the office. 

 

This week had been particularly tiring and not because of her workload but because of stupid social obligations. Sakura scoffed. Last week had been her fifteenth birthday and she’d been away on a mission to the southeast coast of the Land of Fire with her team. 

 

It was an easy assassination mission, but they had to stay and make sure the business transactions their target had going on were thoroughly canceled before going back home. Staying at the beach for her birthday was far from exhausting but when she got to Konoha, it seemed like all of her friends were seeking her out. 

 

Sakura was tired from all the talking. 

 

Today would—hopefully—be the last day of celebrations, this time with Team Ro themselves on their usual bar. The Rusty Kunai was far too busy for Sakura’s liking but she didn’t mind making that sacrifice for her team. 

 

Sakura finished her training routine and went straight to the hospital to see if there were any cases she could take off Shizune’s shoulders or any paperwork that she could bring to Tsunade for the day. 

 

Shizune-senpai showed her latest research at the lab and scheduled a time of the week for Sakura to come back and work on her poison studies before handing her a stack of files and waving her goodbye. 

 

When she got to Tsunade’s office, the place was a mess with many shinobi inside talking at once, either to each other, to Tsunade, or to Shikaku-san. Sakura put the paperwork on top of Tsunade’s desk and moved around the room to try and see what fire she could put out first. 

 

She helped a few of the civilians clan elders she could identify from her time as a child. One or two seemed to recognize her and immediately attacked her with complaints and demands. Sakura politely said good morning to them, smiled prettily and kindly shut down any wayward line they were aiming for while making sure they felt validated. 

 

She wrote down the reasonable requests that she thought they could meet and set a date that week for them to come back for tea with the Hokage. Her smile was sharper as she set the date, her eyes boring on the civilians to impact the importance of them following the schedule and stop showing up unannounced.

 

By the time they left, the office had cleared out considerably and it was easy to hear her shishou bark a laugh.

 

Sakura smiled sardonically at her and received a thumbs up in response as she went about forging Tsunade’s signature on several official papers.

 

“See why I keep her around?” Tsunade laughed again and this time Shikaku huffed a laugh of his own.

 

“You do know that forging the Hokage’s signature is a crime, don’t you, Haruno?” Shikaku stood by the open window, his torso leaning outside as he smoked a cigarette.

 

“Put that thing out, brat,” Tsunade barked but Sakura was pleased to see she refrained herself from throwing her paperweight at him. “Sakura does what she’s ordered to do.”

 

“I see.” Shikaku rolled his eyes as he expelled the last bit of smoke from his lungs before putting his cigarette out. “Have you told her the good news yet?”

 

Sakura raised her eyes from her work and cocked her head to the side. Tsunade’s eyes widened and she searched for something under a stack of files before letting out a little “Aha!” when she managed to find a small scroll that had fallen on top of an opened drawer.

 

“Here you go.” 

 

Sakura got up from her chair on the corner of Tsunade’s table and broke the seal on the scroll to see what’s inside. A tiny gasp escaped her.

 

“You’re officially summoned to participate in this year’s Jounin Exams,” Tsunade said, a smile so big on her face that made Sakura wonder how long she’s been wanting to tell her this. “That is your application file, you can see all the people that indicated you and the time you have to come back here with that signed for further information. Congratulations, brat.”

 

She was really shocked. She obviously knew that’s where she’d been heading but she never thought the Council would approve. She was fifteen and came from a civilian clan and they hated her. Sakura read the scroll and figured that they couldn’t have had any choice on the matter, not with how her application form was written.

 

NINJA: Haruno Sakura

AGE: 15 yro 

NINJA REGISTRATION NUMBER: 012601

RECOMMENDATIONS: Shiranui Genma, Yamashiro Aoba, Namiashi Raidou, Mitarashi Anko, Shiokawa Kaito, Uzuki Yuugao, Tenzou, Nara Shikaku

CLAN AFFILIATION: Senju

 

She had the support of both the Senju and the Nara clans. It felt surreal. Like everything that she had worked for was finally panning out. Sakura wanted to climb to the roof of the Hokage Tower and shout at the top of her lungs that she’d made it. She wanted to laugh with all her friends and to hunt Naruto down so she could hug the shit out of him. She wanted to meet with Team Ro and thank them for helping her grow. And even a tiny bit of her wanted to crawl into her futon and cry.

 

Sakura put the scroll inside her pouch and bowed.

 

“Thank you,” her voice wasn’t thick with emotion like she thought it would be and she felt grateful for that. 

 

“You’re a great shinobi, Haruno.” Shikaku’s praise settled warm on her chest and she smiled brightly at him, getting a nod in response. 

 

“She knows that,” Tsunade scoffed and waved her hand dismissively. Sakura turned her smile towards her shishou and let it get sharper as she saw the gleam in her eyes. They wouldn’t celebrate things yet, she knew. They would celebrate when the exam passed and Sakura got promoted because they both knew she would. Then, they’d break out their best bottle of sake and get properly smashed. 

 

“Don’t forget to sign the consent form at the end,” Shikaku reminded her with an amused smile. “In case you die, of course.”

 

Sakura and Tsunade both rolled their eyes.

 

“Ninja are so dramatic,” Sakura murmured, making her shishou laugh once again.

 

“Get out of here, brat. Go get us some lunch.”

 

Sakura left the office with a smile. It felt like the weight on her shoulders had gotten lighter. Not because she had any less to worry about, but somehow, she felt stronger, more capable to carry anything the world threw at her.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura was steered against her will towards the back booth at the Rusty Kunai by Genma’s strong hands.

 

“I don’t see why we’re doing this,” she complained for the hundredth time that night. Genma scoffed for as many times.

 

“We, the dear jounin of your life, are celebrating your appointment to the upcoming Jounin Exams, Blossom.” He squeezed her shoulders and prompted her to take a seat. “And properly celebrating your birthday.”

 

It wasn’t that she was unhappy to see them, most of her grumpiness was exaggerated and he probably knew it. But goddamnit the day had been long and she was tired.

 

She scooted all the way to the end of the booth so he could sit down next to her. Tenzou and Yuugao shouted happy greetings that were a bit too loud and too overly affectionate for them to be anything other than drunk.

 

“How the fuck do you even know about that, I didn’t tell anyone!” Sakura squinted at them. “Were you spying on me?”

 

“No, you little paranoid pinky… ninja ,” Tenzou slurred, his finger pointing in her general direction as he all but yelled at her. Yuugao snickered. “There’s a biiig jounin meeting the day before the Hokage gives away the summons and we all get the, uh, get the list of the candidates before the test.”

 

Tenzou-taichou was a loud drunk.

 

“Why?” Sakura asked miserably and greedily grabbed for the rest of their sake, slapping away all the too-fast-for-normal-eyes-to-catch hands reaching for it. She didn’t want anyone knowing she was going to participate in the exams in case she didn’t pass. Not that she wouldn’t, she reminded herself with a frown, she was more than capable of making it to jounin.

 

Unless another snake decides to crash in, she smiled internally at the morbid thought.

 

“That way we can sheenks, sheenks,” Yuugao motioned her hands as if she was holding a katana and decapitating someone, “eliminate the candidates who look good on paper but are particularly nasty in real life.”

 

Sakura chuckled at the woman and felt the tension she’d been carrying in her shoulders lessen. One couldn’t stay in a bad mood whenever Yuugao got sheenks-sheenks drunk.

 

The woman was the epitome of a good kunoichi during missions. Always following orders and never shying away from her duties. Whenever she was training with them or lounging around at headquarters, she was funny and loved to tease. Sakura liked all versions of Yuugao, their personalities matched in a lot of aspects.

 

With all the many traces of her personality Sakura had been privy to, drunk Yuugao was perhaps the one that she liked the most. The woman was clumsy and exaggerated her movements in a tremendously funny way that always got Sakura to laugh. 

 

Coupled with how Tenzou-taichou loved to complain and loudly exclaim whatever came to mind and the way Genma got exceedingly flirtier and clingy, it was safe to say that getting drunk with Team Ro was one of Sakura’s favourites activities.

 

Sakura and Genma quickly caught up to their teammates and soon enough, she was undeniably, soundly drunk.

 

“Go get me some food, jiji.” She pushed Genma with her foot until he sort of fell out of the booth. He quickly recovered and dragged himself to the bar where he waited until the bartender put a plate of tempura on his arms and came back to their table.

 

“Here you go, sweetheart.” He dropped the plate more than put it down on the table but Sakura couldn’t care less. She was starving.

 

“Very ladylike.” Yuugao sent her thumbs up while Tenzou looked at her across the table with squinting eyes and a grimace. She was positively stuffing her face.

 

“Wha’?” Sakura shrugged. “I barely ate anything today.” She turned to Genma when he took another shot and frowned at him. “I told you before, I’m not helping your drunk ass anymore.”

 

“I’m fiiine, pft,” Genma scoffed and waved her away. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him.

 

“I’m serious, Shiranui, I’m never cleaning your puke again.”

 

Genma grinned at her—his most charming one, she noted—and put his arm around her shoulders.

 

“No puking, I promise.”

 

Sakura scoffed, shrugged his arm off her and went back to her plate.

 

“How, just—” Tenzou took a deep breath. “Just how can you keep talking about puke and still have an appetite like that?”

 

Sakura burped, more to see his reaction than anything else, and grinned at him.

 

“I’m a growing girl.” She laughed when Yuugao snorted and sake came out of her nose, gave the girl a napkin and then shrugged. “Had a lot of work today, I didn’t have time to eat much.”

 

There was a pause where her teammates looked at each other and Sakura felt dread pool at the base of her spine. Whatever that look was, it was heavy with something. Sakura could see it even in her state.

 

“We know there’s something going on, Sakura.” It was Tenzou who spoke up, his voice slurring but not nearly as much as before. 

 

Ice froze her insides and her food turned into ash in her mouth. Sakura gulped it down and reached for the sake. Maybe if she pretended she didn’t hear him, they’d go back to their night of drunken fun.

 

“Whatever it is you’re doing for Tsunade-sa—” Tenzou continued but Sakura was quick to interrupt him.

 

“Not here,” she hissed, her hand closing around the bottle so strongly it was a surprise it didn’t break.

 

The mood around the table was completely changed, tension hanging around them like a thick fog. Sakura instinctively started metabolizing the alcohol in her system faster. She knew there wasn’t a chance she was under attack but her body was quickly falling into fight or flight instincts.

 

Sakura started when Genma’s hand closed around hers and only then she realised she had begun inching it towards her holster. Sakura stared at their hands almost in a trance. Why had she been reaching for her weapons?

 

“You’re safe inside the village, Sakura-chan,” Yuugao said, her voice soft even as she slurred her words. “You’re safe with us.”

 

Genma’s fingers were warm. Sakura focused on that for a while, willing her heart to slow down. His fingers were warm and his large hand completely enveloped hers in his grip. She sighed.

 

Sakura looked at each of them.

 

She tried to tell them with her eyes that no, she wasn’t safe, even inside the village. Maybe it made her a paranoid to think like that and her experience as a shinobi had really put too much darkness inside her heart but she knew. She knew she would be Danzou’s first target if he got wind of what was going on.

 

They looked back at her, alarm and concern clear on their features. They were so earnest. Sakura wanted to tell them everything and let them take care of it while she hid beneath her covers. 

 

“I want to tell you everything,” she murmured. Genma pressed more of his body against hers and she relished the warmth it gave her. 

 

“You can trust us,” Tenzou said, his voice as low as hers. Sakura managed a small grin.

 

“I trust you guys with my life, taichou.” She tried to reassure them the best she could. “You need to trust me for a little while, until I can tell you everything.”

 

She knew she had already said too much, that their conversation was already suspicious to anyone listening but she didn’t care at the moment. Team Ro was where Uchiha Itachi had been placed during his time in ANBU. She figured they would have bonded with him like they did with her and the toll it must have taken to find out he murdered his entire clan...

 

Sakura had read in an official report that Team Ro had been the first to the scene, Yuugao being the one who found Sasuke.

 

She wondered how painful it must have been for the team. Sakura knew that if they had been half as close as they were nowadays, they would have noticed Itachi’s behaviour and probably be concerned for her because of that. 

 

She smiled her biggest smile then and changed the subject to something lighter. She channeled her inner Naruto and started spouting off different guesses of how the jounin exams would be, trying to get a rise out of them.

 

Sakura turned the hand Genma still held in his and interlaced their fingers before squeezing. He looked at her with a small smile on his face, nodded and turned back to the others to ply them with more drinks. 

 

Sakura’s guesses became progressively more outrageous and with a little help from the sake, they were back to joking in no time. 

 

The sun was almost rising when she helped a plastered Genma into his apartment. They had left Tenzou and Yuugao back at the bar when Sakura realised that the man could barely keep his eyes opened anymore. She scoffed when she had first realised that he lived in the same building as Kakashi and Shizune. He even lived in the same floor as the copy-nin.

 

“What, did you boys just go to the same realtor and begged for matching apartments?” Sakura joked as she helped him out of his boots before stepping out of hers.

 

Genma laughed as he tried to stay upright.

 

“This building got crushed during the Kyuubi attack,” he sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. “This area was really cheap when everything got rebuilt and a lot of shinobi bought the premade plants.” He pushed himself off the wall and waved his hands. “You got me home as promised, no puke involved! Now shoo, I can make it to bed.”

 

Genma took one step forward and proceeded to trip. Sakura huffed a laugh as she grabbed him by the back of his jounin jacket and held him upright.

 

“Sure thing, jiji.” 

 

She guided him to his bedroom, using Kakashi’s apartment layout as a guide. Belatedly, she realised she was giving too much away when Genma looked at her strangely. It wasn’t exactly common for students to know where their teacher’s bedroom was even if the conditions she had found that out were completely innocent. 

 

Sakura waited with baited breath for Genma to say something, but the man just gratefully pitched forward on top of his bed with a groan. Sakura smiled fondly at him and tried to help him out of his flak jacket.

 

He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away.

 

“Sakura.” His tone was more serious than she ever heard it. The fact that he was using her name alone proved how important what he was about to say was. “I’m a loyal shinobi.”

 

“I know,” Sakura murmured with a frown, not really sure where he was getting at. 

 

“Shut up and let me say this, brat.” He frowned back at her and continued to look into her eyes intensely. “I’m loyal to Konoha and I’m loyal to our Hokage but most of all I’m loyal to my friends.”

 

Sakura stared at him, not sure how to proceed. He took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows at her, his face completely serious.

 

“I’m loyal to you, Sakura,” he said like if he didn’t correctly enunciate each word perfectly, she wouldn’t get the meaning behind them. “I trust you. And I trust your loyalty.”

 

Sakura stared at him with wide eyes for a few seconds. The amount of gratitude and love she felt for her friend suffocated her for a while before she realised what the clouding of her vision meant. She was about to cry.

 

With a wet laugh she pitched forward and hugged him, uncaring that her tears were now being absorbed by the fabric of his shirt.

 

“I trust you too, Genma,” she whispered to his shoulder.

Notes:

Sorry for this very transition-y chapter!

I'd like to make it very clear that the Commander is NOT Kakashi lol his name is Usui Toshio. Usui bc I like Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Toshio bc according to the site japanese-names.info one of its meanings can be outstanding person/man/husband. What I said earlier about him sitting in on meetings with the daimyo is anime canon, btw! You guys can look him up, although all we ever saw was his hair haha I guessed he was important bc he wasn't like standing guard on the meeting, you know? He was actually sitting down on the table with the fucking daimyo so, yeah.

I know you guys really want Kakashi (trust me, I am DESPERATE to have him here too) and I promise he'll be here soon, just hang on tight, I gotcha.

I'm sure y'all have guessed Sakura would get to jounin pretty soon in her career and honestly it just never made sense to me that Neji was the only one who made it after the time jump. The only way I can explain that is because jounin is basically a political job (yeah, I call bullshit on that thing about oooh you have to have two affinities, like??? More on this rant next chapter, stay tuned) and then it got me thinking "Wait up. Sakura is *the Hokage's* apprentice. Wtf." So yeah, headcanon is that she didn't get promoted because the council was always road blocking Tsunade left and right. I say fuck that, let's show how hard our girl worked and give her what she deserves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPs3gLB7CeA watch this video and I'm sure you'll start loving drunk!Tenzou as much as I do (thank you Tumblr, for showing me things like this)

Also, I think I should address this at some point but like... Genma and Sakura are STRICTLY friends in this fic. I'm sorry, I know they have great chemistry and all but there won't be even a tiny, drunken mistake of a kiss between them. Please, try to understand that they have a very real and very beautiful friendship and that they do love each other at this point, but they have no interest in each other apart from that. Ship their BROTP with me, please?

I have REALLY exciting news!!! We officially have a Beta! ! ! Remember that friend that encouraged me to continue with my original plot and said that I could write the shit out of it?? Well! She's here to stay and she's fucking amazing. Everyone, please say hi and thank you to Mands on your comments! She's awesome.

This fic is very complicated and long and before I started writing I thought I'd write it all before posting so I wouldn't stop in the middle of it and leave my possible readers hanging but like... I just couldn't. The thing about fanfiction for me is that it brings people together. I remember during my early fanfiction days back in 2009 that I used to read other comments for the fics I liked and talk to people in the comment section and it was just so fucking good to really feel like I'm a part of something, you know? I continue to write this fic because of your comments on it, because I get to have fun writing it and then watch you guys have fun reading it and I dunno what my point even was.

I guess, I just wanted to say thank you. To you all and to Mands and specially to those who review and are willing to take this journey with me.

Chapter 21: The Jounin Exams Begin

Notes:

I'm sorry for the length of this chapter!! I was originally gonna write it all in one chapter but it got HUGE so I split it in two... somehow it stayed gigantic all the same haha

I suggest y'all sit with a nice cuppa in a comfortable position. Oh yeah, I wrote this listening to the fighting soundtracks from the anime and I totally recommend you reading while doing that. Just head over to youtube and type something like Naruto Fighting Songs, any of the thousands of 2 hour long videos will do.

Enjoy :)

Sakura checked and double checked her uniform. 

 

She had four pouches: one custom-made medic pouch on her left hip, dark blue in colour and holding an assortment of things she’d need such as simple antidotes and soldier pills; a standard pouch on her left hip with a special paralysing poison she created with Shizune-senpai, six kunai, ten exploding tags and various senbon; around both her mid thighs were smaller pouches with more kunai, exploding tags a few pepper bombs and about eight meters of ninja wire.

 

In her chunin flak jacket were tiny scrolls Tenten had given her for her birthday where she could fit inside an assortment of different weapons and ration bars. On her lower back, stuck horizontally to her vest was her black and red tantou.

 

Four small knives were hidden in her black sandals, on her wrists and even two poisoned senbon lay between the twists of her braid.

 

She tightened her hitai-ate on her forehead and headed out, absentmindedly scratching the scar bisecting her eyebrow as she went.

 

She got a few looks from the people on the Hokage tower but she paid them no mind. She usually didn’t wear her flak jacket inside the village and certainly not her medic pouch, but she had to be ready for anything.

 

It had been about a month since she was appointed as a candidate to take the jounin exams and today was the day she and her fellow ninja would hand in their consent forms. If this was anything like the chunin exams, the test began today even if it wasn’t explicitly said.

 

Spring was in full swing and the mild weather allowed her to comfortably wear her dark chunin issued pants and her prefered skin tight, black long sleeved shirt. She felt right at home in the tight lycra and it hid her ANBU tattoo perfectly. 

 

She took a deep breath as she reached the top level of the tower. She had to remain focused. This was it. After she was done with the exams, she wouldn’t have anything else to prove to her peers. She’d have reached the utmost top and she wasn’t about to let anything stand in her way.

 

The room she entered was the one usually reserved for when there was a large meeting. It could probably fit all the jounin and tokubetsu jounin at once. Today, there were only about fifteen jounin and ten tokujo. It made sense. This was a test that never had a set date so it would be harder for any possible spies from other villages to gain access and many of the jounin of the village barely stepped foot inside Konoha anymore since the Crush.

 

While the chunin exams were specially tailored to showcase all of their strengths to the other allied villages, the jounin exams were perhaps one of the most well kept secrets of the village. No one ever knew when it was going to be held, usually because they had to have a certain amount of applicable shinobi to take the test and even then it was all kept quiet when everything was settled. 

 

Sakura recognised a lot of the shinobi present. 

 

Some of them she had been on missions with, such as Kaito, Raido, and Aoba. Others she knew from her chunin exams like Ibiki and Anko. Then, there were some who she found herself familiar with the way they walked, their hair and laugh.

 

ANBU jounin, she realised. 

 

People whose name she didn’t know but had once or twice seen naked around the changing rooms. 

 

Sakura successfully suppressed a smile at the thought but she was sure she had an amused expression to her face when she stepped up to where the Hokage waited behind a low table, sitting cross legged on top of plush red cushions.

 

“Here you go, shishou,” Sakura said before handing the woman her registration scroll. 

 

The minute she stepped into the tower she’d begun to pay attention to genjutsu, not exactly sending her chakra to do any work, but extremely attentive to the tiniest of details. She couldn’t afford to be caught unaware. Maybe that was why she didn’t even have to turn to catch the projectile sent her way from behind.

 

“Anko,” Tsunade chastised. “Please refrain from decapitating my shinobi before the exams begin.”

 

Sakura brought her hand to her line of sight to see what the woman had thrown at her. A dango stick. Sakura snickered and rolled her eyes at her shishou. As if she would let herself get hit like that.

 

Tsunade’s dry look told her exactly what she thought of her overly confident face but the woman didn’t comment on it. Sakura stepped back and let another chunin hand in their scroll. She turned to where Anko was and sent the woman a charming disarming smile before flicking the stick back at her.

 

It sailed past her eye, the strength of the throw making her hair swoosh, before reaching the trash can.

 

There was a pause in conversation in the room as most people tried to look like they weren’t watching their every move and others unabashedly stared. Anko’s laugh was as unsettling as ever but the woman didn’t try to approach her and Sakura only gave her a tiny wave before turning around. The woman had recommended her after all, she deserved at least some type of acknowledgment even after throwing random objects at her.

 

Sakura let her feet guide her towards the back of the room where Genma was leaning against one of the many windows. He had a senbon between his teeth as always and the first thing Sakura did was pluck the thing right out of his mouth.

 

“Careful, jiji, you don’t want to choke before you can see me kick some ass.” Sakura grinned cheekily at him and only when she heard a laugh did she realise the people around him were actually there with him.

 

Ino’s sensei, Sarutobi Asuma, was to Genma’s right and to his right was Tenten and Lee’s teacher, Maito Gai. Asuma had been the one to laugh and he was still kinda grinning with an unlit cigarette on his lips.

 

“Jiji?” His dark eyes roved the ceiling. “I didn’t think we were quite there yet.”

 

Sakura found herself blushing despite herself. She didn’t mean to sound so familiar with Genma in front of his peers. These men were nothing like the ANBU guys they normally hung out with at Headquarters. Would they even find it okay for them to have a friendship as close as theirs? Sakura wasn’t sure.

 

Genma pulled her to him, his arm over her shoulders and her hand immediately went to brace her weight against his chest. His message was clear, even if they did find something wrong with it, he wouldn’t give a fuck.

 

Sakura relaxed against him even as a part of her continued alert. 

 

Gai cut a sharp gaze towards Genma but there was still a smile on his face when he returned her greetings. Sakura figured if anyone would have anything to say, it would be him.

 

It was weird being in a place full of people that would judge her for being close friends with a man twice her age. She’d become accustomed to the way ANBU just didn’t give a fuck about things like rank and age, only skill. It was kind of jarring to realise she’d have to put some distance between herself and Genma.

 

Given the arm around her slightly tightening when she tried to leave, he wasn’t about to let her do that. Damn him.

 

If her name started to go around the grapevine with stories of sordid affairs, she was going to castrate him while he slept.

 

“You’re Kakashi’s student, right?” Asuma asked her.

 

“Do you see Kakashi here?” She asked instead. 

 

She regretted the acerbic tone of her voice and words the second they left her mouth but she didn’t back down. She didn’t resent the man anymore but it was kind of unfair that after all she’s accomplished by herself, her name was still tied to his like that. She hadn’t been the copy-nins student for more than six months and that was over two years ago.

 

Asuma raised an eyebrow at her while Gai widened his eyes but before they could say anything, Genma stepped in.

 

“Blossom over here is my teammate now.” His words had a tone of finality to them that broke no other arguments and she was glad for it. Even though she kinda wanted to punch him for hinting at her new status as an ANBU operative. 

 

There were more people coming in as Genma drew the two men into conversation and Sakura’s eyes wandered around the room. It was to assess the situation around her as much as a way to familiarise herself with the other contestants. 

 

At one point, Gai left and came back with Hyuga Neji under his strong arm. The boy seemed surprised at seeing her there but greeted her with a quiet “Haruno” and a nod. 

 

The surprise on his face had been kind of offensive but not unexpected. Today, she’d get the chance to prove them all that she could make it.

 

Her gaze continued categorizing everything around her before it fell upon a familiar figure standing to the back of the room. 

 

The man was leaning against a wall, his posture unassuming, everything about him easily forgettable. The Commander was looking straight at her, a small smile on his lips.

 

Sakura kind of wanted to kick his teeth in when their eyes met and his own closed as his smile grew. Cheeky bastard. She wondered if he knew she was about to be appointed jounin before he roped her into becoming an official member of his ‘little gang’. Probably.

 

She rolled her eyes at him and fought the urge to stick her tongue out. It was amazing how annoying he was without even trying.

 

Regardless of how irritated she was, seeing him reminded her of something else.

 

“Where is everybody else?” She asked Genma quietly when there was a lull in their conversation. She could see Gai was occupied shouting something to Neji but Asuma looked like he could be listening in. She’d have to continue this without giving much away.

 

“They got dispatched yesterday night,” he said just as quietly, watching as she twirled his senbon between her fingers. “Undercover job.”

 

Sakura frowned at him, her fingers picking up their pace.

 

“Without backup?” She asked.

 

“They’re kind of the backup.” Genma grimaced at her and her frown deepened. “Hatake sent one of his dogs late last night.”

 

A myriad of feelings churned inside her gut. Concern for Kakashi and her friends sat heavily inside her and she was sure it showed on her face by the way Genma’s arm tightened around her.

 

“Do they have a medic with them?” The senbon between her fingers spun so fast it looked almost liquid now. 

 

“Keiichi is with them.” Genma shrugged his shoulder and Sakura scoffed.

 

“Keiichi wouldn’t even be qualified as a fucking nurse, Genma,” she said, voice full of scorn even though she didn’t hold any ill feelings towards Fox. He was an okay guy in her books and she had to admit his skill in iryo-ninjutsu was passable and even surprising for a guy with no formal training. Still, the concern she felt for her friends outweighed all that.

 

Genma laughed and his hand grabbed the one she held his senbon.

 

“You’re being careless, Petal.”

 

Sakura’s eyes widened. Her movements with the senbon were those of a shinobi that knew what they were doing. The same way she had been looking at people and assessing them, others were surely doing the same to her. To a trained eye, her skill with the senbon was evident and to any shinobi worth their salt it was a given that most people who worked with senbon usually dealt with poison. 

 

Shit, she’d already given way too much away.

 

With a quick nod, she gave him his senbon back and pushed away from him. This time he let her go.

 

She had to get her head out of her ass and pay more attention. Tenzou and Yugao were very capable shinobi and Keiichi was a competent enough field solution. Not to mention the fact that Kakashi had Team Seven’s uncanny ability to always come out okay in the end. She had to focus on her exam now.

 

“Alright everyone, can the jounin wannabes please form four lines in front of me,” Tsunade called, her voice rising above the carefree chatter around the room. Sakura grinned at Neji’s offended face when her shishou said ‘wannabes’.

 

Genma winked at her and she waved at him before doing as she was told. 

 

She stood at the back of a line, Neji’s long, ridiculously soft looking hair swinging in front of her. There were a total of twelve chunin in the room plus a really big black dog that marked his owner as someone from the Inuzuka clan. It was a very low number and she guessed even fewer passed the exams. Being jounin really meant being elite, after all.

 

“You’re all here because you had at least five recommendations from your peers,” Tsunade said in a clear voice, “at least a hundred D-ranks, thirty C-ranks, ten B-ranks and two A-ranks.”

 

Sakura couldn’t keep the frown off her face. She knew being promoted to jounin was more of a political job than actually skill based. The only chunin that ever managed to snag enough A-ranks to even qualify for the test were those who had connections in good places. And that’s where the tokujo came in.

 

People like Genma who had been orphaned in the war—both his parents lowly genin, canon fodder—and didn’t have a clan backing him up. He was a genius in the battlefield, but the furthest his skillset got him was to tokubetsu jounin and a place as an assassin in ANBU.

 

People like Anko. A bright, extremely talented woman whose reputation had been tarnished beyond repair because of a fucking psychopath of a man. The only place she could progress her career being TI.

 

It was disgusting.

 

It made her stomach churn and her blood fill with the sudden need to prove the system wrong. She’d gotten there because fate seemed to favor her when it unceremoniously dumped her on Tsunade’s lap but her future as a civilian born genin had always been bleak. She’d show them all what people could achieve if they were actually given the chance.

 

Tsunade graciously got up, spread her feet wide and folded her arms beneath her breasts.

 

“The jounin exams consist of three phases.” She grinned fiercely at them and Sakura heard the guy next to her gulp. She fought a grin of her own. “The first one starts precisely at eight o’clock in the Forest of Death. It’s a free for all fight, when we give the signal and you’re still alive, it means you passed.”

 

Ibiki moved from his perch on the window behind Tsunade and motioned for each row as he spoke from where they should enter the forest. Each row got a letter N, S, W, E, and each person a number. Sakura would have to enter through the northern gate number forty-four. She wanted to roll her eyes at how ominous it sounded.

 

“Remember, if you’re not inside training grounds forty-four by eight, you’re immediately disqualified.” Tsunade glared at each of them. “See you there.”

 

In the next second, the room was filled with smoke as all at once, Tsunade, Ibiki, Shikaku and Inoichi all disappeared. 

 

Sakura waited until her fellow chunin all scrambled from their positions, some yelling for their jounin sensei that they didn’t come prepared for the forest of death, others running like their lives depended on it and others shouting words of encouragement to themself.

 

She rolled her eyes and checked the clock. Seven fifty-one. She’d have to run if she had to make it all the way to the northern part of the training ground but she knew she was being observed by the remaining jounin in the room as well as the others contestants.

 

“Well,” she let her voice rise a bit above the noise in the room so she could draw a bit of attention to herself, but not too much. “I’ll see you there, Neji-san.”

 

She waved at him and turned around, leisurely stretching her arms as she left the room through the only door even as some chunin desperately jumped out of the windows.

 

She’d lose some time with this but it was nothing she couldn’t make up by taking the secret passage that led to her house. She’d come out around training ground sixty-two and then shunshin all the way to the forest of death. Easy.

 

The thing was, she wasn’t stupid enough to not realise they were already at battle. Her skills were already being assessed by the jounin, her enemies were already sizing her up and taking her actions into account. She looked unassuming, her pink hair making her features look softer even though she probably looked ready to survive war with how she dressed. And her carefree attitude would show that she was either too self-assured or so powerful she could afford to act that way.

 

Emotional manipulation was a key factor during a fight and everything about her was carefully constructed to keep her enemy on their feet.

 

When she got to the Forest of Death, she quickly located the hidden camera at the gate and gave it a cheeky wave before immediately putting her usual genjutsu over herself. Once she was inside, she would spend a lot of time unseen and she needed the proctors to know she actually got there before eight.

 

Sakura matched her chakra to that of a squirrel she saw passing by and jumped towards a tree branch high above the ground. With swift, practiced leaps aided by chakra, she made her way through the forest towards the eastern gates, dodging the natural wildlife, unseen and unheard.

 

She’d have to be extra careful with Neji. His natural abilities countered hers perfectly and she wasn’t sure of the reach of his Byakugan. She estimated at least twice as much as Hinata’s but found it better to let someone else deal with him.

 

During her observations she had noticed that there were three ninja that seemed to have been in the same genin team. That meant they’d have an advantage over everybody else, specially since they got placed in gates near each other.

 

East gate number seven for the bigger guy who carried a single pouch, no noticeable weapons and looked like he could snap her neck with one hand.

 

East thirteen for the only girl in the team that held a single katana and a serious scowl on her face.

 

East eighteen to the lanky dude that had a controlled quality to his movements that set off the warning bells inside her head.

 

Taijutsu. Kenjutsu. And… ninjutsu?

 

She estimated their abilities with what little she had gathered as she reached the area near the eastern gate thirteen. It was a calculated guess that they would meet in the middle, so Sakura hunkered down and spread her senses as far as she could without having to spread her chakra.

 

In her meditative trance she could feel every single being around her. Everything had chakra in it and she could almost see it all. A leaf fell from her branch and she knew it would take exactly 11.43 seconds to reach the forest floor.

 

She heard a small bird two trees away getting eaten by a snake. She could hear the river in the distance. 

 

A smile came to her face, unbidden. 

 

The last time she had been inside the Forest of Death, she had been nothing but prey. She had felt it in her skin, the cold sweat of fear, the feeling of having every single step watched by something dangerous, something that wanted to eat her alive. 

 

Now she had inverted the roles. She was a predator, coiled tight and waiting to strike.

 

Adrenaline rushed through her bloodstream when she heard her prey a few meters away. She took three senbon from her left hip pouch and dipped it in the paralysing poison she had stashed away next to them. She had to choose carefully her first kill otherwise she wouldn’t stand a chance against three ninja of their calibre.

 

With a controlled breath, she chose the guy she guessed was the ninjutsu specialist. The other two were clearly categorized as kenjutsu and taijutsu specialists and she knew she could hold her own against them both if she needed.

 

Sakura brought her arm back and then quickly forward, at the last second remembering she didn’t want to actually kill him and changing her aim slightly before releasing the poisoned senbon. One for the inside of his thigh as he took a step forward, the other to his neck and a last one to his bicep. 

 

She would give it to the guy. He was aware of his surroundings enough that he managed to deflect the one aimed for his arm but Sakura’s aim was too good and the strength behind the throw too strong. The other two hit their mark.

 

Sakura didn’t wait for him to fall or for the others to react. The poison was fast acting and he wouldn’t be able to move a single muscle by the time she touched the ground. Using gravity to her advantage, Sakura kicked the girl in the back. 

 

There was barely any chakra in the hit but it made her genjutsu drop and the girl broke through five tree barks before coming to a stop at the forest floor, unmoving.

 

The big guy shouted after his teammates but didn’t waste time before aiming a punch to her face. With the force and speed of the hit, she knew she’d have been knocked out cold if she hadn’t sidestepped it. No matter how strong he was, he got nothing on Tsunade whenever she trained her.

 

With calm grace, Sakura’s fist closed over his extended wrist and she used his momentum to bring his arm behind his back. The guy was at least two heads bigger than her so she kicked his feet from under him and wrapped her free arm around his neck to cut off his oxygen supply. 

 

“What the fuck!” The man choked as he tried to force his arm out of her grip. 

 

A guy like him was probably used to always being the strongest person in the room, physically. He was probably freaking out that a girl as slight as her could be stronger than him. Sakura laughed.

 

When his flailing had diminished and with it his strength, Sakura let go of his arm to touch her palm to his forehead. 

 

“Shh,” she whispered to him while he grunted in her grip.

 

With chakra finesse only a skilled medic possessed, she shut down some of his key brain functions so he’d go into a comma. 

 

She was going to lay him gently on the ground when she was suddenly attacked from the back. Sakura dropped him unceremoniously, sending him a mental apology for how the fall must have hurt, before unsheathing her tantou from her back. 

 

The sound of steel on steel echoed through the forest and a flock of birds flew away.

 

“I thought you’d be unconscious,” Sakura told the woman, actually impressed with how she had managed to not only stay awake but also have enough strength to attack her. She had been worried she'd hit her too hard when she saw how many trees she ran through.

 

“Don’t,” the woman panted, her dark hair falling on her face and blood dripping from her mouth, “don’t underestimate me.”

 

From up close, Sakura could see she wasn’t that much older than her. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She sent a silent prayer that this girl wouldn’t take this loss and be discouraged to try again. Konoha needed more women like her.

 

“I won’t hold back this time.” Sakura nodded at her because she owed it to her. The girl’s eyes widened in fright at seeing that this girl younger than her whose kick had broken at least two of her ribs had been holding back.

 

Sakura quickly advanced on her opponent, her kenjutsu lessons with Yugao coming to the forefront of her mind. Every movement she made with the blade like an extension of her arm came to her naturally, muscle memory taking over and letting her speed increase, allowing her to think less about her attacks and parrys.

 

It didn’t take long to subdue the girl, she was already tired and heavily injured. With a swift tap of the back of the handle of her tanto to the girl’s temple, she was down for the count.

 

Sakura kneeled next to her and used the same technique she’d used on her teammate to put her into a comma. 

 

“Sleep tight,” she murmured to the third teammate who was beginning to choke on his spit. She carefully turned him on his side and put him out as well before going back to the girl.

 

With careful hands, Sakura healed her more serious injuries. 

 

She didn’t know how long they’d have to stay there and if there wasn’t anyone to set her ribs back in place, it would be hell later on for the girl. Upon further examination, she decided to heal the microtears along the girl’s kidneys and her concussion. 

 

“Yosh,” she whispered to herself before hauling the girl and the slighter man on each of her shoulders. Sakura walked casually towards the big guy and held him by his flak jacket before starting to climb a tree with chakra infused feet.

 

She sat the three of them on a large branch and rummaged around their pouches until she found some ninja wire to tie them down. With a carefree sigh, she sat down next to them and opened up a ration bar. 

 

Sakura searched the trees surrounding them as she munched on the dry, almost tasteless stick. She didn’t know if she’d get another break before dealing with the others so she’d take—

 

There!

 

Sakura jumped to the next tree over and landed on a thin branch just below the one she had been perched on. 

 

“Yo, shishou.” She waved at a hidden camera, making sure her lips could be read in case there were no microphones nearby. “I put those three into a comma, so you’ll need to revert that when this is over. Check the girl’s ribs too, will you? I put them back but it wouldn’t hurt to double check.”

 

She nodded at the camera, feeling a little silly for talking to herself but needing to make sure her fellow konoha ninja would be okay. It didn’t matter that this was a competition. They weren’t competing against outsiders and she didn’t want anyone to die in there.

 

“Oh, yeah!” She was almost about to leap away from the branch before she remembered the lanky guy. “Shizune-senpai, I used suxamethonium on Lanky over there. The effects should pass soon but maybe keep an eye on him to make sure he’s still breathing, yeah?”

 

She waved again before putting her genjutsu over herself and leaping towards the next tree.

 

She’d make her way towards the gate and circle around the training grounds until she could find the three people that came through the southern gates. South twenty-four, twenty-eight and thirty-two. They were probably long gone but she’d be able to pick up their track if they were careless and didn’t hide it.

 

It didn’t take her long to reach the southern gate twenty-four. By then she could see from the sun’s position that it was around eleven.

 

The shinobi’s tracks were still fresh.

 

From what little she had seen of him, he had appeared to be from the Sarutobi clan. She vaguely remembered glancing over his profile once. His affinity was air and he used it to enhance his speed in taijutsu. He would be troublesome but Sakura had an advantage over him.

 

He knew nothing about her while she knew a bit about his abilities and had managed to gather while inside the meeting room that his attitude was brash. He was an act first, think later kind of guy and she could use that to her advantage.

 

She paused when she noticed a second pair of footprints joining her prey’s. It seemed like there was another predator inside the woods. 

 

Sakura upped her pace when she noticed signs of a fight. From the distance, she could barely hear the sound of screams. 

 

Sakura jumped towards a tree and moved quickly through the tree branches before finding a perch where she could see the fight going on. If her prey had already been hunted, she would gladly let whoever it was take care of him before she jumped in. 

 

The Sarutobi boy was on his knees, screaming in anguish as thousands of bugs crawled on his skin. In front of him, an Aburame stood with his palm outstretched. Fuck, she really hoped those bugs weren’t eating him alive.

 

A silent command from the Aburame and the bugs left the Sarutobi’s face long enough for him to yell.

 

“Fuck you, you fucking maggot!” His eyes were filled with fury. “I’m going to kill you.”

 

“As if you ever stood on my level, Sarutobi.” The Aburame’s voice was monotone as everyone from their clan’s. “In the food chain, you stand below maggots.”

 

Yikes, that seemed personal.

 

Sakura really didn’t want to step into whatever pissing contest they had going on but she knew this was a great opportunity. She’d known from the start the Aburame would be a tough one to deal with, specially since his bugs deemed all her genjutsu entirely useless and this was the perfect place to—

 

Sakura slapped her neck where something had landed on it.

 

Her hand had squashed a tiny black bug. Fuck. She’d been made.

 

Dropping her genjutsu entirely, Sakura let herself fall forward just in time to dodge a swarm of bugs. She scraped her hands along the tree bark to try and slow down before she hit the floor but the impact was still enough to send her rolling through the grass.

 

Sakura didn’t stop to think before sprinting towards the Aburame, tanto drawn and aimed at his vital points. 

 

Another swarm of bugs intercepted her and she cursed when some latched onto her skin. Instead of drawing blood, she could feel her chakra slowly being drained. She couldn’t even fucking move with how many were around her.

 

Trying not to panic, Sakura sent her chakra out of her pathways in a forceful burst, pushing the bugs back in its intensity only long enough for her to move out of the way of the swarm. A scream was torn out of her throat from the pain.

 

With a barely formed theory in her head, she coated every inch of her skin with a thin layer of her chakra. For the bugs to suck her chakra they had to actually pierce the skin, right? This way, she could sacrifice this tiny amount for them and buy herself time to get the fuck out.

 

She had lost her tantou in the fray but didn’t bother looking for it.

 

Aburame was looking at her in what she could only guess was surprise. She didn’t give him enough time to process, only jumped towards him, chakra scalpels in each of her hands. The man sent another swarm towards her and Sakura didn’t even think of dodging. She pushed through the heavy dark cloud of bugs and begged for it to work.

 

It did. Kinda.

 

The chakra layer had bought her time but the sheer force of the swarm threatened to push her off her feet. With a frustrated grunt, Sakura channeled chakra to her legs and pushed, the chakra enhanced movement breaking the ground at her feet and sending her careening towards the Aburame.

 

She dropped her weight towards the forest floor, slid between his legs and cut his hamstrings with her hands.

 

His scream was almost inhumane and the fact he was an Aburame , a family she’d never heard even a word spoken louder than a murmur, sent chills down her spine. Despite the uneasy feeling in her stomach Sakura didn’t falter before turning on her left foot and letting the heel of her other foot come into contact with his temple.

 

The Aburame flew straight across the small river about ten meters away from them and didn’t move any longer.

 

“Fucking b-bugs,” Sakura stuttered. The wave of chakra she’d forced out had frayed her pathways and her whole body was shaking from it. 

 

She used her medical chakra to deal with it but was interrupted when a foot swished past her head. Her instincts had made her move in the last second to dodge the first kick but the second one had caught her right in the cheek.

 

Sakura used her momentum to flip backwards before jumping towards the tree behind her and landing on a branch with a crouch without turning away from him.

 

The bugs had clearly done a number on the Sarutobi but now that they were either converging on their master or flying aimlessly, he seemed relatively fine if a bit tired.

 

“Stupid clan kids with s-stupid fat chakra reserves,” Sakura spat blood and raised a hand as if giving up.

 

The Sarutobi was panting from exertion but she knew he was battle ready and she needed to get ready too.

 

“You’re fast, I’ll give you that,” she spoke out loud so he could hear her.

 

It seemed her sudden stop had given him pause as well, like she hoped it would. With a fierce grin, she put both hands to the wrappings on her calves. Her genjutsu had covered the latest weights Lee had given her— The last set, he’d said, you won’t need weight training after this one— and she used this time to take them away.

 

She held it out for him to see before letting it fall to the forest floor.

 

The resounding sound of the forest floor exploding echoed around them and the tree she was perching on shook with the force of it. 

 

“Well,” she said with a bigger smile and she knew this one bordered on uncanny because Inner had been the one to put it there, “if I lose these weights because of you, you can be sure that I will kill you.”

 

The Sarutobi was eyeing her with eyes so big she wondered idly if they would jump out of their sockets. 

 

In one second she was on top of the tree and the next she had appeared behind him. Lee’s taijutsu lessons coupled with Tsunade’s had given her a particular style of aggressiveness that she learned terrified her enemies. She let the smile on her face grow as the man grew desperate.

 

He was good. 

 

Very skilled and a passable challenge for her. Just enough so that she couldn’t simply end the fight with one punch—not without killing him, anyway. She had to pull some punches just so that she wouldn’t accidentally stop his heart or snap his spine but he went down soon enough.

 

The first mistake he made was blocking her first punch.

 

The force behind it broke at least four bones in his arm instantly. The man had fire in his soul, though, and he kept going at her without even letting out a scream for it. Sakura was impressed with his speed but it hadn’t been a match for Lee’s and she was used to sparring with the kid. All it took was one well aimed punch to his jaw and he was out.

 

Sakura shook herself out, a shiver making her way down her spine when she remembered the feeling of the bugs on her skin.

 

Her chakra had continued healing the pathways without her even having to think about it while she fought and she felt marginally better but she was absolutely sure she’d have nightmares of this. As if she needed any more fodder for that.

 

She went back for her tantou and found it lying on the floor. 

 

She put it back on its sheath at the base of her spine and treated these guys like she had the first team she took out. And if she was less careful with them than with the others, well, no one could really fault her for that.

 

Sakura moved towards the river to drink some water and calculated her next move. 

 

She had already taken out five out of the eleven other participants. There were seven remaining, counting her. Because shishou had said that there would be three phases in total, she figured they’d stop this part of the exam whenever they had an even number. 

 

She could choose to hide away the remainder of the day, she had already taken out more people than what was expected of her, she was sure of that. But no, this was so she could showcase her abilities. She wasn’t done yet.

 

With a resolute nod to herself, Sakura set off towards the middle of the training grounds, keeping the river on her left.

 

There were many smaller animals fleeing from that area and she had seen at least two flock of birds flying away. She got closer to the centre of the forest and the sounds of battle could be heard if she focused enough.

 

With a controlled exhale, Sakura put the genjutsu over herself yet again and moved closer until she could see them.

 

She quickly counted how many people were in the small clearing. Six shinobi, going all out on each other. 

 

If this had been a mission, she would have waited it out, assessed all her opponents carefully before acting. But this was basically a shopping display for the jounin of the village. They would see what each of them had to offer and choose those they deemed strongest. She still had more to show.

 

Sakura dropped her genjutsu and finally— finally— put on the mask and cloak Inner had crafted for her. The intensity of her killer intent paralysed the shinobi in the clearing below and she let them feel the fear she could smell in the air before she jumped down right in the middle of them.

 

With concentrated chakra on her fist, she punched it into the ground.

 

“ Shannaro! ” Her yell punctuated the sound of the ground exploding all around them. 

 

Shunshuuda, Tsunade had called this hit, Killer Spring. It was an adaptation of one of her shishou’s moves and highly effective. The forest floor rose all around them, broken in tiny petal-like pieces and Sakura used an insignificant amount of chakra to cast a genjutsu over them so that they would appear pink, like sakura blossoms.

 

There were times in a ninja’s career that they should be precise and calculating. Other times called for theatricality.

 

So far, she had been holding back so much. It was getting exceedingly frustrating not being able to let her power loose, to go all out. She didn’t think she’d be penalised for killing anyone but at the same time, it didn’t feel right attacking her fellow ninja from Konoha knowing that it was very likely she’d end their lives.

 

So Sakura fixed the amount of power behind her hits to thirty percent of what she usually put. She kicked and punched and moved around the six shinobi around her like water, her movements fluid, one blending into the next one. 

 

She took more hits than strictly necessary, but she could barely feel them. A slice of a katana to her bicep, a fist to her mouth, none of it anything that could even make her pause.

 

All around her came attacks, she didn’t have a single moment of reprieve, no one to have her back. Fire ninjutsu from someone, a wave of water drenching her soon after, a fucking bite that would have taken her leg clean off if she hadn’t dodged.

 

Everything was so unlike anything else she had ever experienced before, it was exhilarating, even though she had to hold back on her instincts to kill. It was enough to bring a grin to her face.

 

At one point, Neji had turned on her and she blocked his hit without thinking. 

 

It was a mistake, of course, because he used the opportunity to block at least six of the tenketsu in her arm with his Gentle Fist technique, messing with the nerves on her arm and rendering it useless. 

 

She quickly moved her chakra through the pathways faster and in more quantity to force them open again. It hurt like a bitch and she made sure to snarl at the Hyuga so he’d know how inconvenient he was being.

 

Sakura couldn’t use any of her training with Lee during a fight with him because he’d surely know all the techniques Lee had taught her. Any weapon work would be a moot point with him as well because of Tenten and all genjutsu was useless. The only thing she could use to her advantage was her training with Tsunade and her mind.

 

Inner took over and almost immediately lowered her centre of gravity to match his stance. The snarl on her face came straight from her nightmares and she saw it made Neji pause for half a second, probably not expecting such a violent approach from her as the full effect of her killer intent washed over him.

 

Half a second was all she needed to attack.

 

She rushed towards him and used her speed and the images Inner had stowed away from his fight with Hinata during the Chunin Exams to mimic his hidden clan technique. Neji’s eyes widened as he did his best to defend himself.

 

While her posture perfectly matched his, she knew her chakra work was crude at best compared to the Gentle Fist. The way her chakra entered his pathways was forceful and not quite as cirurgical as his, the tenketsu burning beneath her fingers more than closing.

 

It didn’t take long for her to manage to get his heart and he doubled over, blood bursting from his mouth.

 

Their eyes locked for a moment and something passed over them. They could continue this fight and the only possible outcome she saw was either one of them dying. Their skills were the exact opposite and while he put her in a tremendous disadvantage, so did she.

 

She’d really rather not fight him unless she absolutely had to.

 

With a quick nod, Sakura stood straighter, drew her tantou and engaged the other katana user in battle, leaving the pale eyed man to fight the Inuzuka.

 

Judging by the position of the sun, they were really close to sunset. This all out battle royale fight had gone on for hours and she could see the effect of it on everyone. 

 

She punched a blonde guy in the gut—with a little more force than she’d wanted to—and he went through a tree. The sound of the thick bark breaking was covered by various small explosions all around them, a thick mist covering the clearing.

 

Sakura took a startled breath and immediately regretted it. The explosions had come from smoke bombs that released poisonous gas. And she had just taken a big lungful of it.

 

She tried not to panic even as everyone around her broke into desperate screams. Was this really happening? The proctors wouldn’t actually poison them, would they? That seemed so extreme.

 

And if not them, just who would break into the Forest of Death and poison a bunch of chunin? Just one person came to mind. Someone who knew their way around a lab and would have the guts to come back to this place again.

 

Why would he be here? Naruto was gone and so was Sasuke and she was fucking alone this time around god damnit she couldn’t deal with any more of this shit—

 

With a start, Sakura realised she’d started hyperventilating. It took everything in her to gather enough focus to send a rush of chakra to her heart and lungs. She slowed her heart rate enough that the poison wouldn’t spread as much when it reached her bloodstream and tried to isolate the poisoned air in her lungs.

 

She fought to raise her hands to her chest, every single nerve ending hurt like they had been set on fucking fire but she managed to open her jacket and apply her green covered hands to her chest to help the process.

 

The smoke began to slowly clear away and Sakura kept her work steady even though she wanted nothing more than to take another gulp of air. Her little crisis had made her breathe more than she should have and a considerable amount had already reached her blood.

 

She was fucking pissed when she noticed the four figures that teleported to the clearing, the smoke completely cleared out now.

 

Ibiki, Shikaku, Inoichi and Tsunade stood before them.

 

Sakura coughed up a mixture of blood and poison and spit it at the ground. The other contestants were on the floor, just like her, some of them still writhing in pain but most had stopped screaming.

 

Ibiki started going around each of them, injecting the antidote as he went.

 

“If you’re still awake,” Tsunade said, her arms on her hips, “you passed the first test.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

Notes:

Whoo this chapter was so hard to write xD

I don't even know where to begin talking about it tbh hahaha You guys, I had to do some basic physics calculation and almost *died* trying, no kidding. Somehow, google has anything you'd wanna know about paralysing poisons but absolutely NOTHING on how long a leaf takes to reach the forest floor if it falls from a 10m high tree. So I gathered my friends (on the whatsapp group, stay home!!) and we all took a trip down memory lane to our hell years *ahem* I meant high school years. Anyway, we managed to reach the number 0.7 seconds but then one of our smartest friends told us that was disregarding gravity and air resistance and the such so I just said fuck it and decided a leaf takes about 11.43 seconds. Don't believe anything I write.

You guys probably already know this but training grounds 44 is called the Forest of Death bc the japanese are ready superstitious, basically. I won't get into too much details bc I'll bore you to tears but basically one of the pronunciation for 4 is "shi" which means "death". Just like we westerners are superstitious about the number 13, they have it with 4. So that's why Sakura rolls her eyes when she got placed on gate 44 of the training grounds 44.

Oh yeah, about Sakura's tracking skills. Well, I was doing some research and came across an article talking about shinobi's and kunoichi's main weapons and the such and it said that ninja were renowned trackers. In the anime, they made it out to be like the only ninja who could track well were those that had extra skills like Kakashi, Kiba or sensory types. That doesn't make sense, so in here, they learn how to track during the Academy and I can just see Sakura becoming really proficient at it bc it's all about looking for signs and patterns. Anyway, that's just a side note that got huge, sorry!

I'm not really sure how I feel about this chapter tbh! What do you guys think on my take on the Jounin Exams so far?

I've been reaaaaally productive lately! There was that chapter on Sunday and on the same day I wrote and posted a one-shot (called "safe from the rain" go check it out!!) and not even a week later here I am with 7600+ words and the next chapter almost finished. I think it's all because I lost my job because of this pandemic a few weeks ago and I've just been on a roll creativity wise and also because I have nothing else to do with my free time. Spite does wonders to my muse.

That being said!!! I think the next chapter comes out this weekend!! Hihihi HOWEVER, if you want to see it sooner maybe bribe me with some lovely reviews *wink wink nudge nudge* I can totally be bought.

Chapter 22: Uchi Naru Sakura

Notes:

I wanted to post this earlier today but I only managed to finish this now, sorry!! I'm actually really nervous about this chapter so please be kind.

I hope you enjoy this :)

Sakura panted and pushed herself into a seated position, one of her legs stretched out in front of her and the other bent at the knee. The toxin had been harmless, only aiming to trick the nervous system into thinking it was being attacked but not doing actual damage to anything. She only needed to concentrate enough to encourage her cells to work at metabolising it faster. 

 

“Your skills in battle and survival were being observed and this final part of the test was to remind you that being a jounin of the leaf isn’t all about your jutsus.” Ibiki’s scratchy voice boomed over the clearing. “It’s about enduring. Be it pain, tiredness or a seemingly never ending battle.”

 

“Most of the missions you’ll take as a jounin will be in the position of leaders,” Shikaku took over, “but quite a few of them are solo missions. You need to be able to handle a fight against however many enemies by yourself without the safety blanket of a team.”

 

When Ibiki got to her, Sakura shook her head at him. She didn’t want the antidote. 

 

First, because she was already beginning to gain control over her limbs again and the pain was almost gone. Second, because she could only imagine how it would look to the other ‘jounin wannabes’.

 

They had felt the same excruciating pain as her and the overwhelming relief from the antidote. They had no way of knowing she had taken care of the poison with her medical ninjutsu and would only think that she could stand that pain with no counter medication.

 

The exams weren’t over and she still had something to prove.

 

“Don’t be stupid, Pinky.” Ibiki frowned at her and she could see people were turning to see her argue with him. “You’ll need your strength for the next phase.”

 

Sakura looked him right in the eyes and pushed herself off the ground. She stood on shaky legs but her posture was straight and sure.

 

“Pass.”

 

Ibiki narrowed his eyes at her and scoffed but didn’t force the issue. She saw the approval in his eyes and that was enough for her.

 

Inoichi-ojisan explained the second part of the test.

 

They were going to be randomly put into two groups of three and each group would get a scroll with a profile report on a fake ninja. They were to set up base at northern gate one while the other group’s base would be at southern gate twenty-three. They had ten minutes to get there and create a plan. Whoever got the other team’s profile report first, won.

 

“Protect the information at all costs,” Ibiki said.

 

Sakura had to fight the urge to sigh in relief when she was sorted into Neji’s team. Thank fuck she wouldn’t have to fight him again. The guy was annoying.

 

Mozuku, a guy that she vaguely remembered seeing during the first phase of her Chunin Exams, was also on their team. He’d been a proctor from Torture and Interrogations and Sakura was sure he’d managed to be appointed because of Ibiki. He had no last name and so she figured he was an orphan like Tenten. 

 

His sharp jawline and dark rimmed glasses were charming in a way and he looked to be in his early twenties. Sakura thought that he didn’t look like much, but he had held his own during their litlle battle royale so she would give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

On the other team was the guy with the nifty fire ninjutsu, the sharp look in his eyes matching his chakra nature; the guy whose katana had cut into her sleeve and the Inuzuka with his bear looking dog.

 

Sakura scowled. They were already at a disadvantage regarding manpower.

 

No matter, they would make up for it with their brains. She knew she was intelligent, it was one of her biggest strengths and source of pride. Neji had been called a genius more than once and she knew he was very capable. Now Mozuku… Mozuku was the epitome of what TI had to offer.

 

He kept everything about him simple and unassuming but Sakura could read the strength behind his posture and frame. His glasses, which she distantly wondered if they were even a real necessity, made it difficult to read him but when he changed the angle of his head Sakura could see what the reflection in them hid.

 

His dark eyes were calculating. 

 

She would bet all her money that Mozuku had made it to the Jounin Exams on sheer planning on his part. He looked like a guy who had worked hard to get to where he was.

 

Their eyes locked for a second and she nodded at him. He would do.

 

When the proctors gave the signal, the three of them leaped towards the nearest tree in unison. Sakura waited until they couldn’t be heard before she began to lay out her plan. She had just opened her mouth to begin speaking when Mozuku cut in.

 

“The other team is clearly melee oriented,” he said.

 

Sakura grinned at him. She had been about to say that.

 

“Yes. It’s safe to assume they will take the offensive approach to this.” She turned her head slightly to look at Neji. “Maybe it will be best to see if we’re not being followed already.”

 

Neji activated his Byakugan and shook his head.

 

“They’re heading south,” he said.

 

“How are you on chakra?” Sakura asked. “Can you keep monitoring their moves until we reach our base?”

 

“My chakra reserves are at about seventy percent, I should have no problems with the byakugan.” There was a frown on his face, emphasized by the enlarged veins around his eyes. “However, my reach doesn’t go that far.”

 

Sakura fought a tiny grin. She wondered how much admitting that must have hurt. The silence that followed made her wonder if he just wouldn’t say what his reach was at all and she was almost ready to reprimand him from keeping vital information from their teammates when he spoke again.

 

“998m.”

 

Mozuku gave an impressed whistle but Sakura wasn’t satisfied. The Forest of Death had a radius of 5km, that meant that from their base to their enemies’ were 10km. If they were dealing with a melee team, the best strategy was to wait for them to come to them, control the environment to their advantage and hopefully overwhelm them with the element of surprise.

 

Sakura came up with a half-formed plan and gave the scroll to Mozuku.

 

“Read it, memorise it, pass it to Hyuga,” she ordered.

 

They had already taken three minutes. She had four minutes more.

 

“We’ll set up traps around our base’s perimeter. Nine-hundred and ninety-eight metres out. That way Hyuuga can keep his Byakugan turned off and conserve chakra. When the traps activate, you turn it on.” Sakura moved around a branch that looked too fragile to hold her weight before she fell back into step with them. “I have thirty exploding tags, five pepper bombs and eight meters of ninja wire. Do you have anything else that will help with the traps?”

 

Mozuku gave the scroll to Neji and turned to gape at Sakura.

 

“Who walks around the village with thirty fucking exploding tags?” He shook his head. “How could you have guessed that you’d need to set up traps like that?”

 

Sakura huffed a laugh.

 

“Being Tsunade’s apprentice taught me to expect the unexpected at all times.” She shot an amused look at him but then raised an eyebrow so he’d focus again.

 

He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

 

“I have enough that we can combine and set up some A-ranked traps.” Sakura snapped her head around to stare at him. Even with her favour of traps, she couldn’t safely say that hers were A-ranked. Mozuku shrugged. “I specialize in traps.”

 

Huh. They were really fucking lucky.

 

“Alright, are you done, Neji?” Sakura turned to look at him and he gave her the scroll with a nodd. 

 

Sakura raised her hand in the air with the sign for stop. Only when the two of them continued to jump to the next branch did she realise she had used the ANBU sign for stopping. She blushed at her flunder and called out to them.

 

The two men turned around but she paid them no mind. With a quick scan of the profile inside the scroll, Inner memorised the words and Sakura set it on fire.

 

The small katon used a lot more chakra than if she was using her natural affinities but it was a nice trick she had learned during ANBU to always have fire at her fingertips.

 

Mozuku gasped.

 

“What the fuck are you doing, Haruno?” Neji was in her branch in the next second, a mighty scowl on his face.

 

“You’re TI, right Mozuku?” Sakura ignored the white eyed boy to her left and looked at their other teammate. “Didn’t you pay attention to what Ibiki said?”

 

Protect the information at all costs.

 

Not protect the scroll. Now the only way for the other team to get their profile report was to torture it out of them. Sakura watched as Mozuku came to the same conclusion as her and Neji’s scowls lessened.

 

“Don’t waste anymore time,” she said harshly to Neji before continuing towards their base.

 

When they reached roughly the one kilometre mark, Mozuku started instructing them on how to make the traps more effective. They wasted seven minutes getting there and would only have three minutes before the beginning of the second phase but it was enough.

 

“That fire type was favouring his left side,” Neji said when they were almost at the gate. The traps were properly set and now all they had to do was wait. “I think he broke his foot.”

 

Sakura nodded at him and leaned against a tree when they came to a stop, the gate at their backs. 

 

“From the looks of it, it was a grade 2 sprain on his ankle.” Sakura took a scroll from her flak jacket and unsealed it, taking out some ration bars to distribute to the guys before sealing the rest of it back up. “Nothing major, but I think it’s safe to say he’s the one who stayed back.”

 

Mozuku thanked her and immediately started munching on it while Neji hesitated for half a second before primly nibbling the dry stick like it was a fancy scone. 

 

Sakura raised an amused eyebrow at him. He could be just as pretentious as Sasuke and that was saying something.

 

Sakura prepared for the customary pang to her chest that came whenever the boy crossed her thoughts but was surprised to realise it was barely there. She had come to accept that he had made his choice and all she could do now was get strong enough to kick his ass all the way back into Konoha. There was no use in wallowing in her sadness for him.

 

An explosion came from straight ahead.

 

“You were correct,” Neji said, his white eyes pumped full of chakra. “The fire type is not here. The other three are.”

 

Sakura cracked her knuckles and pushed away from the tree. 

 

“I’ll take Inuzuka and his bear,” she said. “I have a special treat for them.”

 

Mozuku snorted a laugh and stretched his arms above him.

 

“Well, I’ll tag along if you don’t mind,” he said.

 

“Will you handle the katana guy okay?” Sakura asked Neji, partly because she needed to know and partly to annoy him.

 

He gave a tiny scoff.

 

“Please.”

 

“Alright, we’ll meet up at the tower.”

 

The fight went relatively fast. Sakura dropped the pepper bombs as soon as they came into view and both Inuzuka got disoriented enough that they were no match for Mozuku and her working together.

 

Still, the man was strong enough to hold his own quite well. Sakura figured seeing his loyal companion temporarily blinded and hanging from one of their traps had set him off because the Inuzuka had fought them bravely. She left with three horizontal scratches on her right cheek.

 

She was more worried about Neji. He would have to fight Katana Guy on his own and she could only hope the man didn’t have anything up his sleeves. She briefly considered circling back to assist him if he needed, but in the end decided against it.

 

“Shouldn’t we go look for him?” Mozuku changed his weight from foot to foot in the shade one of the tower’s marquee gave.

 

Sakura had sat down, crossed her legs and closed her eyes in concentration.

 

“Neji is a very capable ninja,” she said calmly. “You have to trust your teammates.”

 

She would give the pretentious genius ten minutes before she went looking for him.

 

“You seem familiar.” And it looked like Mozuku was one of those guys that liked to talk to pass the time. Sakura fought a sigh. Okay, she’d humour him.

 

“You were one of the proctors for my Chunin Exams.” Sakura counted the minutes inside her head. Eight more minutes. She kept her eyes closed and chakra aware of her surroundings.

 

It was a few seconds before Mozuku replied.

 

“Holy shit, I remember you!” He exclaimed. “I was tasked to watch over your row. You didn’t cheat a single time and got all the answers correct.” 

 

Sakura heard him huff a laugh and she hummed in response, neither confirming nor denying.

 

“You were one of the rookies. Really impressive of you to know those questions, you know, they were jounin level problems,” he continued.

 

“I’m sure there were plenty of people who knew those questions.” She shrugged.

 

“Yeah, a few of them maybe, but you got everything correct like you had a textbook with you to look at the answers.” There was an admiring quality to his voice that Sakura didn’t quite know how to feel about. It was flattering, that’s for sure, but she kinda felt like it wasn’t warranted.

 

“Good memory,” she said simply.

 

“No shit.” He snorted. “Wait, just how old are you again?”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes behind her lids. She really wished he’d been the silent type.

 

“Fifteen.”

 

“Holy fucking shit.” Sakura was sure he was gaping without having to open her eyes. “You gotta be the youngest here.”

 

“Neji’s sixteen,” she said curtly. She really hoped he would take the hint and just shut up for a bit. It worked for about two minutes.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

He’d got to be kidding. Sakura opened one eye to look at him and concluded he was trying to get a rise out of her. This oblivious facade was just that, and it kinda reminded her a bit of Anko, to be honest. That would make sense, he probably studied under her in TI.

 

“I’m meditating.” She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

 

“ Now? ” He asked incredulously and Sakura smirked.

 

“Meditation helps you control your chakra,” she began her impromptu lecture. His voice had gotten too annoying for her liking, it reminded her a bit of Naruto and that really sent a pang through her heart. She missed the idiot. “When you do it enough, you can kind of tune in with the chakra wavelengths of everything around you and when you do that, you can easily get a better understanding of your surroundings.”

 

“That sounds like what a sensory type does,” he interrupted her and she immediately scowled.

 

Sakura opened her eyes with a sigh and got up. The scowl between her brows deepened as she saw the amused expression on his face. She took half a step towards him, barely perceptible, but it was enough for him to freeze. It seemed he still remembered how her killing intent had felt.

 

“It is.” Her voice was calmer than before but she saw him gulp all the same. “They do this almost instinctively. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it too if you have good chakra control and work hard enough. Maybe you’ll never be as refined as a good sensor type but it gets the job done. Just like everyone can learn any type of jutsu even if they don’t have the affinity--”

 

Sakura stopped mid sentence and turned towards the tree line. Her hand inched towards the tantou on her back, her posture not exactly stiff but ready. A few seconds later Neji jumped down from a tree branch.

 

She dropped her hands and didn’t spare a single glance towards Mozuku before meeting Neji halfway. 

 

He was bleeding heavily from a cut to his arm, his kimono’s right sleeve tattered. All in all, he seemed tired but okay.

 

Sakura moved her left hand towards his wound, her palm glowing soft green, while the other held fast to his wrist so he wouldn’t run away.

 

“I don’t need you to heal me.” Neji frowned at her when he couldn’t get out of her grip.

 

“This will only take a second,” Sakura replied. “This phase isn’t finished yet, you need to be able to fight.”

 

“The next phase could be me against you, Sakura.” Neji wasn’t trying to leave anymore but his posture was still stiff. She didn’t quite know the feeling that passed through her when he spoke her name. It felt weird, having his pale eyes on her. Mozuku watched her hands interessedly.

 

“Hmm,” the older boy hummed. “That is true, Sakura-san.”

 

“With a wound like this you could pass out before we even reach the other side of the training grounds.” Sakura narrowed her eyes at them both, her chin set. “If this was a mission, I wouldn’t go further without healing my teammate so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

 

Both boys shut up. 

 

Sakura nodded when she was done and Neji ripped the sleeve completely off before they set off towards southern gate twenty-three. They didn’t rush there to conserve their energy but also didn’t dally. The sun had begun to set and neither of them wanted to drag this on for longer than necessary. 

 

Being in the forest at night wasn’t something she wanted to go through again.

 

The last guy, fire type with fire in his eyes, was a surprisingly tough opponent considering he was heavily outmatched. If this was a real mission, she would have run a fist through his chest without hesitation and be done with it in the next second but this wasn’t a mission.

 

So Sakura made a mental tally on everything she had shown the proctors so far and, in the end, decided to trap him in her nastiest genjutsu. It was one she did without hand signs or spoken words and she could practically feel her teammates eyes on her when she told them to go look for the scroll while Fire Eyes suddenly dropped to the forest floor screaming.

 

Ibiki was the only one to appear in a cloud of smoke.

 

“Congratulations,” he said dryly. “You passed the second test.”

 

“Hi, Ibiki-senpai,” Mozuku said with a tired smile and a lazy wave of his hand.

 

“Idiot,” Ibiki growled at him. “You should’ve been the first one to think of destroying the scroll.” He threw a tiny one at his head and two more towards Sakura and Neji. “You did good on that one, Haruno.”

 

Sakura acknowledged his compliment--which she figured didn’t come easily by Mozuku’s face--with a nod and looked at the scroll on her hands. If she had to guess, she’d say it was a teletransportation scroll. 

 

“Well, this last part will be thoroughly less enjoyable…” Ibiki narrowed his eyes at each of them. “For you.”

 

Sakura wanted to find his ominous voice amusing but found herself shuddering instead. His dark eyes were like bottomless pits and she feared if she stared long enough at him, something dark and heavy would reach out to her.

 

She averted her eyes and waited for his command to open the scroll. With a last glance towards the boys and a quick, “good luck,” uttered for them, she was gone.

 

The room she was in wasn’t one she recognised. For a second she thought she’d been transported towards an interrogation cell in TI but she knew for a fact that those were underground. She could see the full moon beginning to rise from the only window.

 

Suddenly, chakra cuffs were closed around her wrists.

 

Sakura snarled at the man that appeared in front of her and made to attack him but heavy arms held her down until she was strapped into a chair by her hands and feet.

 

She had put up a hell of a fight, but in the end, her chakra had been deemed worthless and even though she was fit she was no match for six shinobi without it. 

 

They all filtered out of the room and the only one who remained was the first who had put the cuffs on her.

 

“Ah, I’m terribly sorry about all this.” He did a little bow. “From now on, it’s best if we keep things clear, don’t you think?”

 

Sakura frowned at him and waited for him to continue. She was sure she knew what would happen, but was finding it a bit incredulous.

 

“We’re gonna do some role playing, Haruno-san.” The man smiled at her, his light brown hair falling on his dark eyes. “I’ll play enemy ninja and you’ll play loyal kunoichi from Konoha.”

 

This was really happening. What the fuck. Sakura kind of wanted to kick Tsunade for even considering this a suitable part of the exams.

 

“Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what was in that profile report,” the man looked her right in the eyes and leaned forward, “or I’ll start cutting.”

 

Sakura could feel the chakra washing over her, entering her pathways and disturbing her flow. The genjutsu made everything seem bleeker, the moon outside suddenly gone, making her chest constrict. Sakura bared her teeth.

 

She knew what the genjutsu was doing to her, she could feel the effects on her body and she knew that whatever happened inside it wasn’t real but she couldn’t get out of it. The chakra cuffs prevented her from doing anything. She felt helpless and weak in a way she had promised herself never to be again. 

 

It was maddening.

 

Inside the genjutsu, Sakura spent seven long hours being tortured. She didn’t give him anything, staying quiet for the first five hours. Then, she started playing with her fake captor, her irritation at him and the situation showing through her manipulations. She cried, begging out by telling fake chopped out information between sobs. She could see it gave him pause but soon he was laughing and commending her on her acting skills. 

 

During the last hour she dropped her act and headbutted him when he got close enough.

 

The genjutsu wasn’t really as sturdy as she figured it was supposed to be. With an inner repeat of kai, kai, kai, inside her head and the constant way she kept trying to disturb her chakra, things seemed glitchy.

 

Look underneath the underneath. And she did.

 

She sometimes could see the moon outside, noting that barely any time had passed. The chair beneath her wasn’t filled with sweat and blood from time to time and even his face looked different, less scary.

 

The genjutsu was lifted off her suddenly and without warning, leaving her out of breath. Sweat dripped inside her eyes and her scar itched.

 

“That was very impressive!” The man raised his eyebrows at her in mock surprise. “I’ll see you soon!”

 

And with a careless wave, he left through the door on her back. A blond man took his place. He wore the uniform for TI and his pupilless eyes stared into her soul.

 

“What the fuck,” Sakura panted. “This is insane! The enemy wouldn’t have a Yamanaka to take the information from me!”

 

The man blinked at her complaint and scratched the back of his ponytail.

 

“You successfully kept the information from ‘the enemy’, Haruno-san.” He tried to look reassuring but Sakura knew the kind of invasion to her privacy was about to happen. “This is the final part of this test. I promise you it won’t hurt.”

 

Of course she knew it wasn’t gonna hurt.

 

If she was correct, though, he was about to Mind Walk inside her head and he would see Inner. She wasn’t really sure what Inner even was, she didn’t want a stranger--much less a stranger that was probably going to put what he found out in an official report--messing around inside her head.

 

She had wondered about Inner over the years. In the beginning she had guessed that it had been a coping mechanism she had found as a child to come to terms with the fact that she had two very different personalities inside her head.

 

One that obeyed her mother and father, wore pretty dresses and smiled politely, if not shyly, at everyone. The other was a fierce girl who had chosen to be a ninja and stood up for herself.

 

When she was younger, she could see Inner as a chalky outline of herself inside her head that sometimes worked completely by herself. As she grew older, that outline disappeared as she managed to grow into herself, find out who she really was. She didn’t have separate personalities nowadays, it was all facets that made her who she was.

 

But still, she had learned that her mind was very much more pliable than she had ever thought before. She used “Inner” to represent her ability to mold parts of her mind. She could control the things going on inside her head, bringing specific feelings to the surface while burying others deep inside of her.

 

Her eidetic memory helped her in that and in a sense, Inner was simply her.

 

Sakura still didn’t want a Yamanaka inside her head. Specially with all the dangerous things she had lying around.

 

The process of another person breaching her senses was more disturbing than she remembered it being. Maybe because she was expecting it now and could pay better attention to it. 

 

She didn’t have enough time to come up with a strategy to keep the things she wanted to keep unseen locked away. All she managed was to use Inner to cloak everything and then he was inside her.

 

“Heh, that sounded weird.”

 

Sakura had thought that but she could hear the sentence spoken… by herself.

 

It was her voice, for sure, only it was distorted. Scratchy and somehow both deeper and higher at once. But it was definitely her.

 

“What the fuck.”

 

That, however, wasn’t her.

 

Sakura couldn’t see anything. For a second she thought she’d gone blind but then she realised it wasn’t that she couldn’t see but that there was only darkness to see. Very small, if she looked in the general direction of down, was the Yamanaka.

 

He was looking around at the darkness surrounding him and that’s when she realised that it was her. Sakura was the darkness.

 

She didn’t know why her thoughts weren’t being spoken out loud, only that it maybe had to do with the fact that they weren’t exactly sentences , but more like half-formed images and sounds and thoughts all combined.

 

The Yamana looked up.

 

“What the fuck is this?”

 

Sakura laughed and the sound echoed around them. With conscious effort, she thought the words she wanted him to hear out loud.

 

“You’re inside my head, Yamanaka-san.” No matter how freaked out she was, she wouldn’t waste this opportunity to mess with this guy who had uninvitedly broken inside her mind. “What exactly do you want to see?”

 

He continued to look around, his face the picture of incredulity. She had to give it to him though, he only took a few seconds more to recompose himself.

 

“This is mandatory for every jounin,” he explained slowly. “We have to check if you haven’t been compromised before giving you all the clearance the elite has.”

 

Sakura felt angry. She felt like she could just get up and go pinch the elders’ heads and squeeze until it went pop. From the way the Yamanaka shivered, she figured he could feel it. 

 

Sakura took a deep breath, and that was so weird because she technically didn’t have a body to do it, but it calmed her down all the same. 

 

Her mind was going overtime trying to think of her next move. She couldn’t exactly block him out completely otherwise he wouldn’t pass her and fuck she really wanted to make jounin. Not to mention he would be extremely suspicious of her and she just knew Danzou was involved in this. 

 

This type of disregard for the personal lives of the shinobi in the village had his dirty little paws all over it.

 

She’d have to hide it. Tuck away the information against a little corner somewhere he’d never think to look twice. She didn’t even know if she could actually do it but she’d have to try.

 

Sakura took the darkness away, slowly giving him access to her childhood memories first.

 

Where to hide it, where to hide it?

 

He was already reaching her genin graduation. She had to hurry.

 

It needed to be somewhere dark. Somewhere he wouldn’t notice the heavy feelings around the memories because he would assume it was from what he was seeing. Somewhere like…

 

Sakura stepped into the Forest of Death once again. This time, she was in her thirteen year old body, Sasuke and Naruto to her sides and… Orochimaru staring them down.

 

This was a memory that made up most of her nightmares. It had always been a moment where she thought she had failed them, her teammates. With Orochimaru staring at her like that, she had never felt so fucking weak before, not even when they had faced Zabuza at the bridge.

 

Sakura fought the shaking of her tiny legs--so fucking tiny, she didn’t remember being this small--and jumped towards the snake sannin. With quick fingers, she shoved the handful of darkness suddenly trapped between her fingers right into his pouch.

 

This memory, once something that had held her captive many nights, keeping her awake with nightmares, would be her savior today.

 

Yamanaka peeked from around a tree.

 

She was strong . Blood and sweat permeated every single nook and cranny inside her mind, her hard work had gotten her to a point where she could actually do this--whatever the fuck this even was-- and it had taken a lot of sacrifice on her part to get here.

 

But she made it.

 

And she would fucking make it to jounin. 

 

The blond haired man sped through many of her memories. Some of them, she fought the urge to push him out of--Sasuke leaving her on the cold bench, Shinsei pressing her against the onsen wall, Ino falling to the forest floor, Kakashi breaking down, the blood that felt sticky to the touch during her ANBU missions--but she held fast. 

 

She let this intruder inside her head and waited with baited breath for him to get the fuck out. The memories stayed hidden.

 

She felt lightheaded. The moon was a bit higher in the sky but not by much. Probably a couple of hours since the sun had set. There was sweat on her forehead. It slid slowly down her temples and neck and she counted to five before she felt the chakra cuffs being removed from her.

 

“I’ll take you to the arena now, Haruno-san.”

 

Sakura stared at him.  

 

No. No fucking way would they put them to fight right now. 

 

Suddenly, she came back to herself. She was so angry and so fucking ready to punch the next person who threw something like this at her again that maybe a fight wasn’t that bad. 

 

She shouldered past him with her teeth bared, killing intent slowly leaking out of her. They made it to the arena where Tsunade, Shikaku, Ibiki and Inoichi stood at the podium, Mozuku in front of them. 

 

Sakura took her place next to him while the Yamanaka joined the jounin and tokujo standing on the mezzanine. 

 

Mozuku took a discrete step away from her and she cut her narrowed gaze towards him. He had his eyebrows furrowed and sweat on his face. Sakura tsked and put a lid on her killing intent. 

 

Neji joined them in the next minute and Shikaku took a step forward.

 

“The three phases of the exam are over,” he spoke loud and clear. “Now, we’ll discuss your performance and each jounin of the village will take a vote. If the majority agree, you’ll be promoted.”

 

Sakura felt some of the anger she had been feeling leave her body. While the people on the stands spoke about Mozuku’s abilities and then Neji’s, Sakura felt the exhaustion from the day settling over her. 

“Haruno Sakura,” Shikaku called.

 

She snapped her gaze to his, her muscles locked tight to keep her from shaking. She was so tired of this already. While the nervous energy of being minutes away from a promotion kept her alert she was overcome with the sudden need to just lay down and take a nap.

 

“Impeccable work,” a woman called from the stands. Sakura couldn’t see who she was but she had heard her voice around headquarters before.

 

“She needs to work on her ninjutsu,” a man said, which, okay. She’d give him that. Ninjutsu had never been her forte and she wasn’t in any hurry to increase her control over her chakra nature since she had a vast repertoire of skills to fall back to when needed. 

 

Someone defended her, saying exactly that and she turned to see that it had been Raido. 

 

“She’s not a team player, is she? That could be troublesome in the future.” It was a man who spoke and he was standing right to her left. He was a jounin sensei, she knew, but not of anyone she knew. She narrowed her eyes at him.

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” It was Genma who spoke up, his scoff loud and disrespectful. “Haruno would die before letting anything happen to her teammates. She fits well in any team she’s assigned.”

 

Sakura couldn’t see him without turning but she let a smile reach her lips all the same. His voice was carefully nonchalant, almost bored but she appreciated his effort all the same. 

 

“Shiranui is right.” She recognised the voice once again but had never seen the face of the man who spoke up. “This isn’t about her not being a team player, it’s because she’s highly effective in her decision making. This can come across as rash but the truth is every second counts in the field. This is a characteristic every ANBU operative has.”

 

“She’s from ANBU?” Someone said, surprised.

 

“Has been there for almost a year now,” Genma answered. She couldn’t place his tone of voice, couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or not in this situation.

 

“Alright.” Shikaku raised his voice over the chattering shinobi. “Let’s call a vote now.”

 

“Mozuku,” Shikaku said. “All those in favour raise your hands.”

 

Mozuku passed.

 

“Hyuga Neji.”

 

Just a few hands weren’t raised.

 

“Haruno Sakura.”

 

There wasn’t a single hand left unraised.

 

Sakura didn’t know the kind of relief that washed over her was possible. It rushed through her veins and scrambled her brain for a bit, leaving her kind of dizzy in its aftermath. Blood rushed inside her ears for half a second before she felt Mozuku lightly punching her shoulder.

 

“I’m really glad I didn’t have to fight you,” he said with an awkward laugh.

 

“Congratulations,” Sakura laughed. She turned to extend the same sentiment towards Neji but her view was blocked by the thick green wall that was Gai. For a second, she feared Neji wasn’t even breathing in his embrace.

 

Anko touched down next, immediately putting both her hands to Mozuku’s head and ruffling his head rather roughly. Sakura laughed at the blush on his cheeks.

 

Then she was being pulled into a tight hug, Genma’s strong arms around her like vices.

 

“You’ll break me, jiji,” she laughed, “fuck off.”

 

“I knew you would make it,” he said.

 

“Then why are you trying to squeeze the shit out of me?” She joked.

 

He called her a brat and hugged her tighter and she didn’t mind at all. A lot of people came to congratulate her and she smiled at them all. Most of them she knew were from ANBU but others like the people who recommended her, Asuma and Gai still made sure to speak to her.

 

Gai was loudly speaking to both her and Neji--more like yelling at their general direction--and he happily announced a night out the following Friday to celebrate their promotion. Even Mozuku was invited. Sakura was actually glad for it, this way she wouldn’t need to do any work.

 

Sakura made her way towards her shishou. 

 

Most of the people had already left and she just wanted to go home.

 

“Shishou,” she murmured as she approached the woman.

 

Tsunade nodded at her. She knew exactly what she needed. With quick goodbyes to everyone else, the two women made their way towards the Senju Estate.

 

The night was cool and she was already shivering by the time they got home. The lack of food had gotten to her and while her chakra reserves weren’t dangerously low, they were greatly diminished by the exams. 

 

Sakura made to reach for the fridge but Tsunade slapped her hand away and pushed her into a chair before going about heating up their leftovers. 

 

“What happened today was sick. ” Sakura didn’t waste any time. “I’m guessing Danzou suggested the whole let’s-torture-our-elite-to-know-they-can-be-trusted shitshow. ”

 

“During the Sandaime’s first go at the job, yes.” Tsunade sighed. 

 

“And what if I hadn’t managed to hide what I needed to from the Yamanaka?” Sakura challenged because, fuck, if she hadn’t totally winged it and succeeded … She didn’t even want to think about it.

 

“This is one of the reasons I didn’t immediately shut down the third phase,” Tsunade said. She sat the food in front of Sakura and took her place at the head of the table as Sakura scarfed it all down. “Shikaku and I both thought it would do well to lose this battle for now so we can win the war in the long run.”

 

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked around a mouthful of rice.

 

“If you hadn’t managed to hide everything from Yamanaka Fu, we would probably be okay because we’d just have Inoichi order him to keep it to himself.” Tsunade steepled her fingers in front of her.

 

“You’re moving things along.” Sakura blinked at her. 

 

“Yes,” Tsunade said simply.

 

Sakura sighed and worried her forehead with her fingertips.

 

“So Inoichi-ojisan is next, then,” she said. 

 

It made sense. First, they knew for absolute certainty that he was on their side and he worked well with Shikaku, to put it mildly. Then there was the fact that both the Yamanaka clan and the Nara clan had been affected by Danzou before. Both clans had reports of missing children and having them on their side would be good for their mission. 

 

“Next month, we’ll announce it.” Tsunade grinned at her and her eyes seemed to soften for a second. “I’m so proud of you.”

 

Sakura stared wide eyed at her shishou. It’s not like she didn’t think she would be proud of her, she’d always known she was, having long ago learned how to read the woman. But the simple fact that she had actually said it out loud…  

 

Sakura didn’t fight the tears that sprang to her eyes.

 

“Fuck,” she choked on her exhale and now it was Tsunade’s turn to look surprised. “If you think that will get you off the hook for springing this on me you’re absolutely wrong, Shishou!”

 

She brushed her tears away with her forearm and looked back at the blonde to see she was eyeing her with a soft expression on her face.

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a heads up, Sakura.” Her voice was as soft as her face and Sakura actually sobbed .

 

“I don’t even know why I’m crying!” She exclaimed, wide eyes spilling tears on her cheeks as she choked down a few more bites of her dinner. “I think I may be pms-ing. Shishou, stop looking at me!”

 

Tsunade got up and rummaged around the kitchen cabinets for a few moments while Sakura began to wonder if there was something wrong with her tear ducts. They just wouldn’t stop leaking.

 

Her shishou smacked a bottle of sake and a couple of cups in front of her before sitting down. The good stuff.

 

“Here,” she poured for Sakura, letting the first cup overflow, “this is what you need.”

 

Sakura hiccuped into her food before pushing it away to grab the small cup. She took a tiny sip, her tears still falling but the taste of alcohol on her tongue calmed her down a bit.

 

“I’ll draw you a bath and give you a chakra massage today.” Tsunade nodded almost to herself before downing her whole cup in one go. “Drink your sake, Sakura.”

 

“You’re the best, Shishou,” Sakura whispered into her cup, eyes closing as she savoured the taste of the fine sake.

 

She was safe beside her shishou and she’d made it.

Notes:

I figured Sakura was well due a good cry, don't you?

This chapter (and the last) was really hard for me but I gotta admit the thing that was the hardest was that scene with Inner Sakura (btw Uchi Naru Sakura means Inner Sakura). It wasn't even supposed to be addressed in this fic at all, but the scene just wrote itself and I spent quite some time agonising over it later -.-'

In the end, though, I stand by what I wrote and I ended up liking it a lot. I hope you do too. Also, I have some more theories on this but since I haven't decided if I'm gonna address it later on or not, I'll keep quiet for now hihi Sorry for the suspense, but do let me know what your personal hc are regarding Inner Sakura!

You guys, next chapter it's going to be... I don't even have words for it. I'm really excited to show it to you, I think I've been desperate for this more than you.

Anyway! We're closing a cycle with this chapter, Sakura is finally a jounin and quite some things are gonna change for her in the near future. I'm excited hehe. Also, some time jumps will come pretty soon, be prepared for it.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a great weekend! Much love to everyone who reviewed last chapter, I didn't get a chance to reply because I was rushing to finish this but I hope you know that every single one of them got the biggest, goofiest smile on my face. Please keep them coming!

Chapter 23: Back Home

Notes:

It's currently three in the morning.

Here, have a chapter :)

Two minutes until they reached the eastern barrier. 

 

The moon had already reached its apex a couple of hours ago and the only reason they kept running through the night was because they knew these woods like the back of their hands. The mission had been exhausting and they were all ready to get back home as soon as possible.

 

Kakashi sighed in relief when he disarmed the coded seals of the barrier.

 

Tenzo, Yugao and Keiichi stepped through the opening behind him and they each saluted the sentinels on duty. He could probably find his way towards headquarters with his eyes closed from there and had to restrain himself from actually doing so.

 

“So,” he stretched his arms above his head and cracked his stiff neck, “Rusty Kunai?”

 

“I’m beat, I think I’ll head straight home, Taichou.” Keiichi gave them a wave and waited for Kakashi to give him a nod before shunshining towards the Hyuga compound.

 

“Anything but that karaoke bar, please.” Yugao huffed a laugh and waved hello to some operatives they passed by. Kakashi watched as they looked at him in awe and had to fight a scowl. “I don’t think I can take anymore of Tenzo’s singing.”

 

“Rude…” Tenzo muttered with narrowed eyes.  

 

They went immediately towards the changing room and when they took off their masks, Kakashi could see that his cheeks were flushed. He chuckled.

 

“Maa maa, no teasing my kouhai, Kouhai- chan .”

 

This made both their faces redden like he knew it would and Yugao squeaked. Kakashi chuckled again as they divested themselves of their clothes, they were so easy to tease. 

 

When he was younger, their hero worship of him was something that always made his head bigger than it had any right being even if sometimes he found it annoying. As they grew up—fought together, bled together, lost together—that hero worship had morphed into deeper respect and camaraderie. Still, years after and it was just as easy to get them flustered like this.

 

The three of them made their way to the showers, Kakashi in the middle with Yugao to his left and Tenzo to his right. It wasn’t anything close to erotic or even something to be embarrassed about. There was no space for such things in ANBU.

 

When he was younger, Yugao had often graced his bed but it had been years since she had fallen for Hayate and there hadn’t been a fallout between them of any kind. She was his teammate, he would die for her and she would die for him. The sex had been purely a way to release stress after missions and as easy as it had been to take that extra step it’d been easy to take that step back.

 

Seeing their teammates naked wasn’t exactly anything new or exciting and it was good to use this time to unwind. They joked about him needing to be rescued from a solo mission as the steam rose around them and Kakashi found himself relaxing.

 

Yugao and Tenzo finished first and left for the changing rooms but Kakashi stayed behind. The hot water felt amazing on his stiff and overused muscles. He closed his eyes, braced his arms against the wall and let his head fall between them. 

 

He missed home. 

 

Usually when a shinobi went away for longer than a month they had mandatory leave for at least a week unless an emergency came up. Ever since the Konoha Crush he couldn’t remember being in the village for longer than two or three days at a time. As soon as he touched ground and managed to throw out the contents of his fridge and buy new ones, he had to leave again. An urgent mission needed his skill set or his expertise or maybe he was needed to boost morale.

 

Kakashi sighed and turned the water off. 

 

He wouldn’t complain. If what his village needed was for him to go out on a string of seemingly never ending missions, it’s what he would do. If he died along the way then that was fine, it was a shinobi’s death, a worthy one. He would do what was needed of him.

 

Kakashi grabbed a towel and dried himself up as the steam in the room began to clear out. He frowned at his hands wrapping the towel around his waist. 

 

That had been what he’d always thought ever since his father killed himself. The way for a shinobi to go wasn’t with his own weapon. It was on the battlefield, fighting and protecting his village. 

 

The same drive that he had a few years before to always go above and beyond during missions was still there but now… Now, he didn’t feel like he was as okay with the thought of dying as he had been before.

 

There were still some things he had to do before he could go. He had to see Naruto return, had to make sure he could make up for the terrible upbringing his sensei’s son had. He had to take care of Sasuke—whether that meant getting him back to Konoha or not. He had to win another challenge with Gai and make sure the village was safe after the hit they took.

 

He missed Konoha.

 

Kakashi shook the troubling thoughts from his head and moved to the changing room. Yugao and Tenzo were already wearing their jounin uniforms and were both talking to the ANBU Commander.

 

The man’s lazy brown eyes met his and a cheery smile spread across his face.

 

“Late as always, huh?” He shook his head with a laugh and turned back towards the rest of Kakashi’s team. “You guys can go on ahead, I’ll give you a few days to write the report so you can relax for the rest of the night.”

 

The pair turned towards Kakashi and he dismissed them with a cheery smile of his own, saying he would catch up in a minute. The flush on both their cheeks was as cute as always, they had never quite gotten used to his bare face.

 

Usui sighed.

 

“You know, I really didn’t expect you to have any problems with that mission.” His face was uncharacteristically serious as he looked at Kakashi and he fought the urge to fidget. “If I had even the slightest idea that you would need backup I would have stationed a team nearby.”

 

Kakashi looked at Usui. He could see that the look on his face hid just how worried he’d been. He knew this man better than probably anyone else in the village even if he made it a point to always call him by his last name.

 

When the last person in the village that he had any emotional connection died, Kakashi had been lost, his grief all consuming. Usui Toshio had taken him under his wing when his sensei died, he’d taught him how to hide his feelings behind a cheery mask, taught him the way of ANBU.

 

A blank face reveals too much, Kashi-kun, it’s always better to hide behind a smile.

 

At first, he’d been resentful, refusing to create another bond with an authoritative figure because all of those had left him. When the Commander had said that he could call him by his name, Kakashi in all his teenage angst had refused to call him anything but his family name. It was stupid and childish but it stuck.

 

After the Kyuubi attack, Usui had been the one to help him find an apartment, the one to take him out of his father’s mausoleum of a house. He had been a guide to many of the orphans from that time. Kakashi, Genma and many other lost kids that had found themselves falling into ANBU.

 

Usui had been the one to make sure he’d gotten all the best missions, the one to make sure he grew up right. Or as right as someone in the shadow ranks could. Kakashi had shaped his very personality around the teachings of this man.

 

Smile to hide how dead his eyes looked. Be aloof and cool so that people would never realise that he dissociated on a frequent basis. Pull out a smutty book so people would think he was eccentric and not notice that he hadn’t slept for the past two days because of his nightmares.

 

Kakashi would have been long dead if it wasn’t for Usui Toshio. He still wasn’t used to seeing the man demonstrate any kind of concern towards him.

 

“Ah.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly and raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I think it was an oversight on both our parts. Don’t worry about it, my old team took care of me just fine.”

 

Usui frowned slightly when Kakashi moved past him to reach his locker but he pretended he didn’t see it. He started pulling on his jounin uniform.

 

“Speaking of, it seems like Team Ro was a member short.” Kakashi chanced a look at Usui while he’s fastening his pants. The man had sat down on the single bench that ran between the lockers and was lazily sprawled along the length of it. It looked like he was going to wait for Kakashi.

 

“Ah, yeah. Actually, Keiichi is not a member of Team Ro,” Usui explained. “I put Genma on the team when you left to play pretend dad with a bunch of genin but he asked for the week off because of the Jounin Exams.”

 

Kakashi scoffed. Pretend dad. He wasn’t old enough to be their dad and their relationship had never been like that. Gai and Kurenai easily fell into the role of almost parent-like figure to their students. Asuma could maybe have passed off as a fun uncle but Kakashi had always figured his relationship with Team 7 was that of an absentee older brother at best.

 

“I didn’t leave, I was forcibly retired from the forces.” Kakashi rolled his eye at his mentor while he tied his hitai-ate. He leaned back against the locker and faced Usui. “That still leaves Team Ro short a member.”

 

“There’s a newbie.” Usui looked at him with a slight grin and a particular glint to his eyes that Kakashi had no idea what to make of.

 

“A newbie?” From what he gathered, only three new operatives passed the ANBU exams last year, two of which he had worked with already and one that had only been stationed inside the village so far.

 

“Yep.” Usui shrugged and Kakashi crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Only fifteen years old and already a medic nin.”

 

“A recruit then.” The minimum age for anyone taking the ANBU entrance exams was sixteen, anyone younger than that had to be personally recruited to join. Kakashi nodded to himself and frowned. “Unusual for a medic nin to be considered, isn’t it?”

 

Usui huffed a laugh and leaned back on his hands.

 

“Yeah, she’s truly exceptional, Kashi-kun.” Usui gave him an impish grin and an unapologetic shrug when Kakashi glared at him for the nickname. “I had to do some careful maneuvering to get her to join Team Ro, to be honest. It was worth it, though. Anything to make sure my shadows are as safe as possible.”

 

Usui treated each member of ANBU as if they were his own family. A very competitive and deadly family, sure, but everyone was important to him all the same. Getting a medic to join the ranks was a good idea, Kakashi was sure he’d be giving the kid extra work soon enough.

 

“I’m glad Team Ro has a capable medic,” Kakashi said softly, his hands running through his damp hair. “Why didn’t you send her instead of Keiichi?”

 

“Uhei came with your extraction request the night before her Jounin Exams, I couldn’t pull her away.” Usui got up and stretched a bit, an amusedly fond look on his face as he continued. “That’s also the reason Genma stayed behind. He asked for the week off to be there for her.” Usui snickered. “The two of them are really close, it’s adorable.”

 

So this girl was not only a medic when she had been recruited, she was a chunin medic. That was insane, Kakashi thought, he could only wonder how capable this kunoichi was for Usui to have scouted her.

 

Usui clapped him hard on the shoulder and pushed him towards the exit, saying he didn’t want to make those two wait too much. Kakashi followed his lead to leave headquarters and once the cool night air ruffled his hair, he stopped and looked at the clear sky.

 

He briefly considered just going home, he was so tired. He watched Usui slowly walk towards the treeline in the direction of his house as Kakashi considered his options. In the end, the thought of his cold, empty apartment propelled his legs towards the Rusty Kunai.

 

He took his time walking through the empty streets once he left the training grounds, appreciating how peaceful the village was at night. As he made his way inside the busy bar, though, he was greeted with the complete opposite.

 

Every single booth was occupied to their maximum capacity and beyond and the few tables in the bar had been taken away to accommodate even more shinobi on their feet with drinks and cigarettes in their hands. 

 

Kakashi looked towards the clock behind the bar as he pushed his way towards the booth furthest on the back where he knew his friends would be. It was already three in the morning, why did the whole village feel the need to convene on the bar?

 

He finally managed to sit down across from Tenzo and Yugao, noticing in the back of his mind that he had never seen the two of them sit so closely together like that.

 

“Why is it so fucking crowded in here?” Kakashi grunted mostly to himself, he’d been hoping for something more peaceful after over two months away. He spared a smile for Tenzo when the man poured a cup of sake for him.

 

“Oh, yeah.” Yugao blinked widened eyes at him. “You don’t really know do you?”

 

“Know what?” Kakashi frowned at them. 

 

“Sakura made jounin! We didn’t know the good news ourselves before we came here but this is her party.” It was Tenzo that answered, a proud grin on his face. “The only ones who passed the exam were her, that Hyuga kid and a guy from TI. You know, the one Anko took under her wing?”

 

He hadn’t known Anko had taken anyone under her wing. Nor that Sakura had been recommended for the exams or even that she had been capable enough to make it.

 

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he immediately felt his stomach drop. That was unfair of him to think. Sakura had always been extremely driven and hardworking even if her motivation had been skewed at first. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to him.

 

It takes him a few seconds to realise Yugao had been giving him this little smile that looked equal parts confused and amused. Kakashi downed his sake.

 

“She’s the newest addition to Team Ro,” she said, voice gentle and proud. “Our own little Wolfie-chan.”

 

Sakura was in Team Ro. The newbie Usui had told him about, a medic nin with great skills. Wolfie-chan.

 

Kakashi leaned back on his seat and took his cup to his lips absentmindedly when Yugao filled it back up. He felt blindsighted but undeniably proud of her. Even though he hadn’t been able to do much for her when she was younger and they had never been particularly close, Sakura was still Team 7 in the end.

 

More than that, between the two of them was a bond that he didn’t have with Naruto and Sasuke. The boys had left Konoha and even though it was for different reasons, neither had the same amount of loyalty and dedication to the village that Kakashi and Sakura had. 

 

The two of them would forever be the ones left behind and shared the fate of holding the same guilt in their hearts for letting Sasuke defect and the hurt from Naruto leaving the village.

 

Even though their last encounter hadn’t been pleasant for either of them, Kakashi still felt proud as fuck and maybe just a bit scared for her. He’d never paid attention to all the raw potential she had but he was glad someone else had and also a little terrified because he had taken that same too fast escalation in his career and it had left him very vulnerable. 

 

It left him with a mark on his back outside the village… and inside as well.

 

Kakashi nursed his sake silently and tried to reassure himself that Sakura was going to be fine because she had a lot of people surrounding her and caring for her. She wasn’t alone.

 

Even as he thought that, his eyes scanned the bar to find her. It seemed all her hard work had been at the cost of her social life. 

 

Sakura was standing between Tenten and Ino and she seemed happy and carefree for appearance's sake but as soon as she was forced into a larger group of the rookies, things changed. 

 

She looked participative, sure, but Kakashi himself was a master at faking things like that. Everybody else probably didn’t realise it but he could see she was actually always on the sidelines, not really committing to any of the conversations going on around her while keeping a smile on her pretty face.

 

He worried for her because while he had distanced himself from his friends—pushed them away, really—like she had, he had always had his pack with him. Faithful companions that knew where he was at all times and that at the tiniest sign of danger, both outside and inside the village, would alert someone.

 

His ANBU team had also been a kind of family for him and he was glad that she at least had been placed with the people he trusted most in the village. They would have her back.

 

“I should go congratulate her,” Kakashi said into his cup, not really intending to.

 

“You really should,” a familiar voice said to his side.

 

Kakashi turned and was surprised to see Genma sliding in next to him in the booth. The man that had been one of his best friends ever since he joined ANBU put a heavy arm around his shoulders and grinned at him, the familiar senbon bobbing between his teeth.

 

“You old bastard, I haven’t seen you in ages.” Genma shook him a bit by the shoulders and immediately slid the glass of whisky he’d been drinking towards him. “Here you go, catch up.”

 

“You’re older than me…” Kakashi sighed but accepted the alcohol all the same. One of his number one rules was to never turn down food or drinks when they were for free. He was pretty sure that was in the Shinobi Handbook somewhere.

 

The four of them easily fell into their usual banter and Kakashi immediately felt like he was a teenager. Sitting with his old team, drinking and talking shit. If he ignored the complaints from his body he could easily pretend he was eighteen again. 

 

He missed them.

 

Genma’s behaviour that night, however, was odd. Not odd as in bad but more like Kakashi couldn’t really figure out what he was thinking. He seemed his usual carefree self in one moment and then suddenly he would make a quip at Kakashi that held just the tiniest bit of excessive aggression to be considered joking.

 

It was almost like he was mad at Kakashi but he never broached any particularly troubling subject and in the next second he was back to being goofy and flirty. 

 

A flash of pink caught his attention suddenly.

 

Sakura had managed to slip away from the worst of the crowd and was leaning against the counter talking to the bartender. Kakashi pushed Genma until he slid off the booth so he could get up and start making his way towards her.

 

Kakashi dodged a few elbows and a drunk kunoichi he didn’t recognise all the while keeping Sakura in his sights. She was wearing the full jounin uniform like he was, her hair much longer than the last time he’d seen her but still in the same braid as before.

 

Without a second thought, Kakashi leaned against the counter next to her and interrupted whatever the bartender was saying to order another whisky. 

 

They both looked at him in surprise and it only took Kakashi a few seconds to see the blush on both their cheeks and realise he interrupted something. The man behind the bar was maybe a few years younger than him and moderately handsome, and Sakura was the star of the night. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise for him as it did.

 

Kakashi cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head.

 

“Sorry,” he murmured just for her ears.

 

For a second, they just looked at each other and Kakashi wondered if she knew all that he was apologising for. By the look on her face, she probably did.

 

He had been a dick to her the last time they had seen each other. She had caught him off guard, breaking down in the safety of his apartment and he had all but ordered her to leave. He didn’t know how to properly address that, how to explain to her what had been going on inside his head that night.

 

Sakura was looking at him with a firm expression on her face. Her green eyes were calmly regarding him like they could see inside his very soul, like she knew just what he was thinking. Kakashi unconsciously held his breath.

 

She looked at him for a beat longer, a frown appearing on her otherwise smooth face. He was vaguely intrigued by the small scar bisecting her eyebrow, he wondered distantly how she had gotten it. Had it been an enemy’s sword or maybe an accident during a spar? Why didn’t she heal it herself—

 

“It’s okay.”

 

His thoughts were interrupted by her voice. It was light and didn’t hold any particularly heavy notes to it but he knew, he just knew that she was saying that in answer to his own thoughts. It was like the two of them had silently agreed to move past it.

 

Kakashi exhaled.

 

The bartender placed their drinks in front of them and Kakashi was surprised to see she had ordered whisky to herself as well. They both broke their staring contest and took equally long sips of their drinks. 

 

“I’m glad everything went okay on your mission,” Sakura said quietly.

 

Kakashi took another sip of his drink when he realised that her shoulders were relaxing a bit. It jarred him, honestly, the notion that not only she had been aware of his mission but also worried about him. 

 

It was enough that his reply came out completely honest, and not coated in the fake sugary smile he’d learned to give everybody else.

 

“It was a fucking disaster. ”

 

And then he found himself telling her about the mission.

 

He told her he had been tasked with infiltrating a minor lord’s court in the border with Kiri. The merchant kept trade with both Konoha and Kiri and Kakashi had been sent to evaluate the situation and see what needed to be done so that the lord didn’t stop trading with Konoha and dropped the other village if possible.

 

Kakashi had discovered that Shunichiro, the lord’s firstborn, had been preparing to campaign for his father to drop Konoha because he’d been in love with a Kiri girl. Kakashi killed the man easily, without giving himself away, but the problem had come when the girl Shunichiro had been in love with came to the compound with an entourage of shinobi to investigate her lover’s death.

 

The lord’s youngest daughter had apparently fallen in love with him and just wouldn’t leave his side for a second so Kakashi didn’t have any ways of escaping without anyone noticing and he wasn’t sure he could fight all the shinobi and still run without giving Konoha away.

 

He managed to summon Uhei, his fastest hound, while he was in the bathroom and got the distress call out.

 

Kakashi was almost having an out of body experience as he told Sakura everything, his mouth moving without his consent. He barely managed to keep the details out of his story and it was with horror that he realised he had almost told her everything as if she was Genma or Tenzo.

 

Because the truth was that the lord’s daughter, Himiko, had fancied herself in love with him because for the past two months he had thoroughly indulged himself in her. Not only that, but through her, he had gathered a lot of information on her father that Konoha could use to blackmail him later on.

 

He thanked fuck he managed to keep his tongue inside his mouth at least concerning these particular details of the story because what the fuck, he didn’t even know why he was telling Sakura all of this.

 

Kakashi downed the rest of his whisky and briefly wondered if he was drunk. Sakura was looking at him with a small smirk so he cleared his throat.

 

“Congratulations, by the way.”

 

He fought a wince. After all that talking he had finally managed to tell her that.

 

“Thank you.” Sakura’s smirk grew into a smile and she clinked her glass with his empty one before finishing hers.

 

“It’s only natural that you’d be the first to make jounin,” Kakashi said. He saw her surprise and beneath that, he could practically see her pushing away the unwanted sadness that came with any mention of their team. He could see it because he was doing the same thing. “You had always been the most dedicated, the most hardworking… I’m sorry I couldn’t see that as clearly before.”

 

The words tumbled out of his mouth easily because they were the most simple truth. He was sorry. Sakura was speechless besides him for long enough that he turned to look at her. 

 

There seemed to be something she was struggling to say but the words didn’t come out of her mouth so he decided to save her from coming up with a reply. Kakashi cleared his throat.

 

“Yeah, uh, congratulations again, Sakura.” He gave her a cheery smile that wasn’t as fake as it usually was, his tone of voice sheepish. “I’m sorry I don’t have a present for you now but I definitely will soon.”

 

Sakura nodded slightly, her tongue coming to wet her lower lip. Her eyes searched his face for something that he wasn’t quite sure what it was and then a slow smile spread across her lips. Her hand left her side and landed softly on the exposed skin of his forearm.

 

“It’s okay, Kakashi.” They both knew she was saying that for more than just his excuses for not having a gift for her promotion. 

 

Kakashi looked at her small, deceptively delicate hand. He remembered when her hands had been uncalloused and ill prepared for fighting. A few years had passed and now the hand resting against his arm was anything but that. He could feel the strength behind her grip, the bumps of her calluses and even though the skin was fair and didn’t have any scars, he knew that these were the hands of a seasoned kunoichi.

 

He slowly brought his gaze back to her face and smiled slightly back at her. Things felt okaier than they’d had for some time.

 

Sakura retracted her hand to accept the new glass of whisky from the bartender. She smiled coyly at Kakashi from behind her glass.

 

“You know, you could always show me your face as a gift.” She jokingly raised her eyebrows at him, making him chuckle.

 

“I think a gift for making jounin has to be more valuable than that, don’t you?” Kakashi took a sip from his own freshly poured whisky and moved closer to her when an intoxicated shinobi poked his elbow in the middle of his back accidentally.

 

“I dunno.” Sakura stared unfocused into the distance, a finger pressed to her chin in thought. “With the bet I had going on with the boys I might get enough cash to buy a nice gift for Shishou’s birthday.”

 

“What?” Kakashi asked, surprised. “You guys betted on it?”

 

Sakura gave him a deadpanned look.

 

“Of course we did.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “At first it was to see who could guess what you were hiding beneath that mask and then to see who could find out first and then we had all these stipulations for increasing the amount of money every few weeks that went by that we didn’t manage to catch you without it…” She looked amused as she shook her head slightly. “It got out of hand pretty fast.”

 

Kakashi chuckled incredulously. 

 

For half a second he considered telling her that she’d already seen it but ultimately decided to refrain from doing so. He wanted to keep his Sukea identity safe and Sakura had surprised him so much already he didn’t even think of the possibility that she wouldn’t figure it out if he gave her the slightest of hints.

 

“Well, I’ll swing by your house when I find an appropriate gift, if that’s okay with you.” Kakashi pushed himself away from the counter, ready to let her go back to her friends. “Second street after the civilian market, right?”

 

“Oh, uhm,” Sakura trailed off awkwardly. She scratched her scar and Kakashi wondered if that was one of her unconscious habits. “I kinda… don’t live there anymore.”

 

Kakashi frowned at her. He knew the Haruno clan was a fairly important civilian clan and it was uncommon for the civilian children to leave their parent’s home before marrying. Then again, the girl standing before him was hardly a child anymore. 

 

It felt odd to think that he didn’t really know her. He had almost made a point of keeping himself away from anything concerning his sole female student’s private life. At first it was because he didn’t really think the four of them would develop any form of bond like he had with his team and then it was because he didn’t know how to deal with a little girl that had been as sheltered as Sakura.

 

With Naruto it was easy. The boy was living alone and had no parents, he could barely take care of himself. So Kakashi made sure to stock his fridge and swing by with plenty of vegetables and to gently guide him to the local laundromat.

 

Sasuke had been a bit trickier because he had been as meticulous and organised as Kakashi had been at that age, always liking things to be as orderly as possible. He didn’t need help with his cooking or cleaning but Kakashi still made a point to plant some tomato filled onigiri on his kitchen table from time to time, unseen.

 

Sakura didn’t need any of that. She had always been well taken care of by her parents and self sufficient in all other matters. At the time she hadn’t been as interested in apprimorating her skills as she clearly was now, but even the pathetic attempts at teaching Kakashi had tried didn’t need much from his part. She had learned tree walking faster than he’d seen anyone else do and most of the questions she had she took to the library.

 

His chest hurt when he thought that something had happened for her to break away from her parents like that and he wasn’t there for her. The image that came to mind was of her during her first chunin mission, a girl looking older than her almost fourteen years in just her wrappings and blood covering almost every inch of her. 

 

Kakashi knew there wasn’t a space left for him in her life. They were both bound by their duties and loyalties to Team 7 but she didn’t need him to be her jounin sensei anymore. She probably didn’t need him to even be a distant mentor, he was sure Usui and his old team already filled that role.

 

He wished he could offer her something but he didn’t have anything more to give.

 

“I live at the Senju estate now,” Sakura said when he stayed quiet for a few seconds too long. “Huh, I guess you can even find me at the jounin headquarters now!”

 

The way she said it, like she couldn’t quite believe it herself made a tendril of anger settle on his stomach. He had contributed to her self doubts, he was sure, and he didn’t know how to make up for it.

 

“Sakura!” A girl’s voice called from the other side of the bar. Kakashi wasn’t sure if it had been Tenten or Ino but both girls were waving enthusiastically, their clumsy movements betraying just how drunk they were.

 

“I’ll leave you to your friends,” Kakashi said with a small nod. He was already stepping away from the bar when she called him back. She looked like she was carefully considering her next words, her face an expressionless mask. 

 

He didn’t know what she would have said but she got interrupted before he could encourage her to speak. Ino pulled roughly on her arm, exclaiming that she wouldn’t be able to get out of their next drinking game. Sakura shot him a calculating look before letting herself be pulled away.

 

It was only when Gai came crashing into him and put his arms around his shoulders that Kakashi realised she had left him with the bill for their drinks.

 

“Put this in Shiranui Genma’s tab, would you?” He managed to say to the bartender before Gai was pulling him into another challenge.

 

Kakashi let himself become absorbed by his friend’s antics, his body soft and pliant from exhaustion and all the whisky. He was placed on a table with many of his friends and forced to participate in an arm wrestle with Gai.

 

Time passed with everyone on the table talking about Sakura and Neji, how they had performed on the exams and what had happened. Kakashi got a play by play on Sakura’s taijutsu skills by Gai, the man proudly exclaiming that Lee had helped her with her training and that she was currently wearing the last set of his weights. 

 

“The girl’s fucking scary with her genjutsu, man. Kurenai would’ve been impressed if she’d been around to see her in action,” Asuma told him at one point, smoke escaping from his lips. “A real assassin type if I’ve ever seen one.”

 

Kakashi sat and drank and listened to his friends telling him about what had been going on in the village. At one point, he looked towards the booth on the back where Sakura was seated on Genma’s lap, hugging Yugao towards her. They were all drinking and singing loudly and Kakashi suddenly felt like an outsider.

 

With that depressing thought, he made his excuses to leave. 

 

His friends didn’t try to keep him there and he was glad. He was just too drunk and too tired to be in a crowd. Even though it was way past four in the morning, the shinobi inside the Rusty Kunai showed no signs of stopping. 

 

So Kakashi left almost unnoticed and let his feet carry him towards his apartment. The cool early morning air was sobering somewhat but as soon as he went past his traps, he regretted having drank so much.

 

He couldn’t stand the stale musty smell of the place after it’d been locked up for so long. He’d left two months ago without any prior notice and he couldn’t find anyone to take care of the place.

 

With a weary sigh, Kakashi grabbed the only bottle of sake he kept around, took off his flak jacket and left. He left his feet guide him again and found himself standing in front of the cenotaph.

 

Being there had always served as a type of punishment and salvation all wrapped up into one mind numbing activity. Looking at the shiny stone with his loved one’s names carved into it had always made him feel better and worse at the same time. 

 

That night, he didn’t stay long. He didn’t know what to say to Obito. He imagined that he was looking down on him with exasperation on his face. He imagined Rin with that gently admonishing face only she could pull out. 

 

Kakashi snorted at the empty air around him and left without a backwards glance.

 

This time he knew where he was going, but he felt immensely more unsettled by the track he had to take. He trudged past the training grounds towards the outskirts of the village where some of the clans housed. 

 

The entrance to the Nara compound was to his right and he kept going further until a small broken gate led him towards a path through the dark woods. He felt scared in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time but still, determination burned inside his gut. He had to do this.

 

Kakashi followed the path through the trees until he reached a clearing. He went past an overgrown garden—vegetable patch, local flowers, spices, medicinal plants—towards an old, decrepit house. Technically all of this was his.

 

A portion of the land around Konoha that melted into the Nara forest. Both their clans had an agreement some generations before him that the forest would be in possession of the Nara but the Hatake wolves would be free to roam and hunt in the woods.

 

The Hatake clan was most commonly associated with wolves. His grandfather had come from Kumo during the first war from a clan as big as the Inuzuka that had the same relationship with wolves as they had with dogs. A large migration had happened at that time all around the world, many clans were found missing a few members as people deserted in search of better conditions.

 

When his father was born, the Hatakes inside Konoha had been reduced to just Sakumo and a cousin that had died before Kakashi had even been born. The clan got a noble status for their help during the war and had been officially instituted as a Konoha Noble Clan after it was over.

 

Then his father had taken a tanto to his gut and ended his life.

 

Kakashi broke out of the memories being back there brought him and went about disarming the various traps and seals he’d put up around the place. He tried to immerse himself in happier memories of spending most of his childhood training in the backyard and how he used to spend his days off cleaning up the place, perfecting his favourite dishes from cooking books he bought at the bookstore, teaching himself how to fish and hunt and generally take care of himself.

 

He went inside and tried to remember why he was there at all. Feeling particularly sad and drunk, Kakashi downed half the bottle in one go before he took a deep breath and faced the room he had come for. 

 

His father’s study. The place he had found him in a pool of his own blood. 

 

Kakashi had been there about four times after his father killed himself and never alone. He came back the first time, right after the funeral because he was still in shock and his young mind couldn’t let go of the fact that his father had always liked the house clean and this room was dirty and he needed to scrub the floor from his father’s blood. 

 

Minato had found him on his hands and knees, scrubbing at the floor with tears running down his face.

 

His sensei had stayed there with him and helped him clean every corner of the house until it was cleaner than it had ever been before. Then Minato cleaned his puke when Kakashi heaved and passed out.

 

He had sealed the room shut and not even looked at its door when he passed by. 

 

The next time he’d gone inside was to get his father’s sabre when he made chunin, sensei at his side like he’d always tried to be back then. He sealed the room once again and came back years later, this time already in team 7.

 

He remembered that day to be one of his favourites from his farce of a childhood. 

 

Rin and Obito had followed him because he’d never disclosed where he lived before and had happened upon one of his days off where he cleaned and cooked and took care of the garden. Some of it had gone wild during his father’s absence because he didn’t have the time to do it all by himself but he had managed to keep the vegetable patch mostly alive.

 

Rin had been the one to question why he didn’t clean a room and Obito the one to grab his arm and pull him there when he disclosed the story in half complete sentences. They cleaned the room and the rest of the house together then Kakashi made them all their favourite dishes. 

 

The next time he’d gone inside the room was to put the sabre back. He was missing an eye and carrying a gift from his best friend that felt too heavy to hold.

 

For all of two minutes he considered it. 

 

He held the sabre in his hands and kneeled where his father had kneeled before and really, really considered ending his life like his father had. Then Rin had burst inside the room, tears on her cheeks and scoldings on her lips and she held him as he shook in her arms and cried and howled at how unfair it all was. 

 

She had held him through it all and had quieted his breakdown with a single kiss to his lips.

 

That had been the beginning of one of the worst mistakes of his life. He had tried to love her like Obito had, tried to honour his last wishes and make her happy but he just couldn’t . In the end, Rin had deserved someone pure and bright like Obito and Kakashi was… Kakashi.

 

He hadn’t been able to love her like Obito would have and he had ultimately pushed her away before that fateful day with the Kiri ninja.

 

The room had been sealed since then. He had moved out of the house soon after the Kyuubi attack, Usui’s gentle hands on his and Genma’s shoulders when he pointed them both towards buying the plants for the new apartment complex.

 

Kakashi entered the room, this time alone, and waited for the panic to set in. 

 

It didn’t, surprisingly. Sure, he vaguely felt nauseated by the smell of the room—a thousand times worse than his apartment and even the rest of the house smelled—and he was sweating from the stress but it felt like it was something he could handle. Still, his eyes pointedly looked anywhere but at the spot that he had found his father.

 

He moved stiffly until he was behind the desk and kneeled on the floor, pushing away all the images it brought to his head. His eyes caught on a flash of white.

 

It was a picture of his father and mother, Kakashi himself barely a year old in her arms. She had a bright smile on her face and Sakumo was holding her from behind with his nose buried on the skin beneath her jaw.

 

He knew his father was feeling her scent, memorising it, marking it in his head as his. He wondered if his father had remembered her smell even after she died. Kakashi wished he could have remembered her scent, the way she laughed, if she ever sang him lullabies.

 

Hatake Midori had died a few months after that picture was taken during a mission. She was a chunin, good and efficient in her job but not with enough connections to make it to jounin and Kakashi had come along before she could make it to tokujo.

 

Kakashi didn’t remember her but he had heroworshiped her when he was a child. He grew up with his father telling him stories of her, how she was a stellar shinobi who was extremely intelligent and took the rules seriously. So seriously that during missions, she would even wear a mask.

 

Kakashi had taken up the mask before he even entered the Academy and refused to take it off. At first it had been because of his mother, then because he just never took his uniform off, not even inside Konoha—it had been one of the recommendations during the war and many shinobi from his time couldn’t quite shake off the habit of it—then because it just felt weird to go outside the house without it.

 

It had also been useful during those first years without his father where everywhere he went, someone seemed to recognise him as the White Fang’s son. 

 

One other thing he had taken from his mother was her summoning scroll. While she hadn’t come from a prominent clan, she had been faintly related to a branch of the Inuzuka and wildly liked by everyone around her. That distant relative had given her the ability to summon a pack of dogs and Kakashi had taken over it as soon as he had enough chakra to do so. 

 

He’d just become a chunin and his far from developed chakra reserves were just enough so he could summon a small pug and promptly pass out. He woke up the next morning expecting to be alone only to see the tiny dog munching on the dinner he had left on the table. That first day all the pug had done was whine and eat so Kakashi didn’t have any problems with naming him Pakkun. 

 

Kakashi sighed, coughed at the mothball that met his mask when he did and placed the sake bottle next to the picture. He needed to get out of there.

 

With quick fingers, he activated the seal on one of the tatami blocks behind the desk. It glowed blue before emitting a faint hiss and opening at the middle. Inside was a chest and the reason he had gone there. 

 

Kakashi picked it up and didn’t bother taking what he wanted from inside. He closed the hidden compartment again and stood up with the chest braced against one hip. He swayed where he stood. 

 

Maybe he was drunker than he’d thought he was.

 

With a shaky hand, he reached for the bottle but at the last second stopped. His fingers closed around the portrait frame instead.

 

Kakashi sealed the room quickly and left the house. The cool spring evening air was a relief to his senses and he brought the hand holding the portrait up to lower his mask beneath his chin. It was suddenly too hard to breathe.

 

Kakashi had only enough time to put the things on the ground next to him before he leaned over the porch and threw up over the railing.

Notes:

Don't say I never do nice things for you guys! I hope you enjoyed your Kakashi chapter and my personal headcanons hehe I have just a few notes to make on this chapter.

First, my spellcheck really hated that Kakashi only had one eye to roll, it vehemently wanted to change it to 'rolled his eyes'. Also, it was particularly offended that I meant Genma's lap and not Grandma's lap.

I based Kakashi's feelings on how a shinobi's death should be off the bushido notion that during the times of war and fighting, it was better for a samurai to give his life in battle than take his own life with the sword if they wanted to regain their honour.

Also, I love how Kakashi makes people blush.

This isn't official, I think, but pakupaku (ぱくぱく) is the onomatopoeia used to represent the action of eating quickly so I figured that's why Kakashi named Pakkun like that. I kinda like this idea and how the other names he chose for his ninken are equally as cute.

If you guys have been following me on tumblr, you know that I haven't been feeling so good these past few weeks so I just really wanted to take the time to thank you guys for all the wonderful reviews you've left me so far. Writing this and seeing you like this as much as I do really makes me happy <3

On that note! The amazing Waytoo and Calliartss drew some fanart for this fic!!!! I cannot express how fucking ecstatic that made me xD I'll link them bellow and it would really mean the world to me if you guys could go check it out and give them some love. Calliartss picture of Sakura is a bit of a spoiler for next chapter ;)

For future reference, any type of art this story inspires you to do is HIGHLY appreciated. Be it a drawing or a drabble or a fic or even a long review. I love the idea of my art inspiring others to work on their art as well.

Let me know what you think,

J

https://waytoo.tumblr.com/post/619005567197986816/im-obsessed-with-this-fanfic-like

https://calliartss.tumblr.com/post/619394688711016448/jounin-sakura-for-juliette-deschemps-fic

Chapter 24: Sensei

Notes:

I'M BAAACK!

So... I won't talk much here at the beginning but like... lol... I wanted to post this chapter on my birthday......

... On August 9th.

Then I thought. Ya know what? Imma post this mf on Kakashi's birthday instead.... and then I didn't.

But this is FINALLY done and here for you guys hehehe... Coincidentally! I saw this post today on Tumblr saying that maybe we could instate the 28th of September as the official KakaSaku day! So there. It's almost the 28th here in my corner of the world anyway. Have fun :)

 

Sakura woke up on a Sunday morning three and a half weeks after her promotion to an empty house with an equally empty fridge. The first rays of sunlight were only just slipping through the cracks in the blinds but she could already see that it was going to be a hot late Spring day.

 

She sighed at the pitiful contents of the fridge and trudged back to her room with lazy feet to shower. Sunday was the only day she didn’t train if she was in the village and even her work at the office was light. She’d been looking forward to not doing much that morning but it looked like her shishou had forgotten to stop by the shop. 

 

Again.

 

Sakura knew Tsunade had an early morning meeting with Shikaku and Inoichi so she was probably going to have breakfast delivered to her office, leaving Sakura to her own devices. Maybe I could go to that nice tea shop next to the hospital and give myself a break from cooking , she thought as she lathered shampoo on her long hair.

 

But no. If she didn’t buy the things they needed right away, she would just have to do it later. It was better to do any chores she had now that the weather was milder than later on when it was hot and annoyingly busy.

 

Sakura applied a careful genjutsu to her ANBU tattoo as she got ready for the day. Her pouches were lighter than if she’d been going for a mission but she still kept them on her hips just in case.

 

The closer they got to Summer, the hotter it got throughout the day and Sakura had taken to wearing just a backless halter top, similar to the one she wore for ANBU, and loose hakama style cropped pants. The only inconvenience was that she had to hide her tattoo with a genjutsu all the time because of her bare shoulders but it was a small price to pay for not sweating through her clothes.

 

Sakura tied her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, buckled up her short black sandals and left the compound through the training grounds. As a second thought, she went back for a lightweight hoodie to complete her all-black ensemble. She always felt chilly in the cold section of the store.

 

It was too early for much to be open, the majority of the people on the streets were shop owners preparing for the day. Sakura walked through the familiar path with lazy steps before reaching the closest store.

 

The old lady behind the counter called a greeting that Sakura replied with a half-hearted smile and a wave as she made her way further into the store, stopping just to pick up a basket. 

 

She was so tired. 

 

These past few weeks had been ridiculously busy. Tsunade had sent her on two jounin-only missions the last week alone and that was on top of her regular missions with Team Ro. She felt old and tired and she really just wanted a nap.

 

Sakura stood in front of the dog food aisle for way longer than necessary, her mind so far away she could barely see what was in front of her.

 

Not for the first time that week, her thoughts drifted towards Kakashi. 

 

She hadn’t expected him to approach her like he had, the surprise at him doing so taking away much of the anger she had carried inside of her. Then he had apologised . It seemed almost unfathomable that he would do so and that had been what swept away any lingering hurt she had.

 

She felt like she could understand him a bit better. It was strange to think she’d been following in his footsteps by entering Team Ro but she was glad to see him back. She had nightmares of the things she’d read on his file, she couldn’t imagine what it was like for him, being the one who had actually lived through those events.

 

Some of the habits she’d taken up with, he probably had as part of his day to day life since before she was even born. 

 

Sakura knew she wasn’t okay strictly speaking. She had nightmares that woke her screaming in the darkness, had her reaching for weapons and hyperventilating in the first corner she could find. She had come up with an admittedly troublesome habit of putting things away deep inside of her and not really dealing with them at all. How easy it was for her to fall into that battle-ready state of mind was downright scary at times. 

 

She was self-aware enough to recognise all of that inside of her, mainly because she hadn’t been raised to be a shinobi. Her parents had always made her emotions feel validated and that in turn had made her more tuned in to those aspects.

 

Kakashi hadn’t. Not only did he have years of traumatic experiences piled up, he had suppressed his traumas beyond recognition. She couldn’t fault him for overreacting when she’d seen him fall apart.

 

And then there was their weird interaction during her jounin promotion party.

 

He’d talked to her, really talked to her. He looked at her and saw her in a way he never had when she was his student. Their past stood between them but at that moment he hadn’t been her ex-jounin sensei. He had just been Kakashi and she was happy despite everything else that just-Kakashi had chosen to stay and talk to her.

 

Sakura was more worried about him now than ever, especially when she looked around in her shishou’s office for his file and noticed he’d spent a total of nine days inside the village in the last six months.

 

She was worried that he’d crash and burn and there would be nothing she could do. While she knew it was going to take a toll on Kakashi, working outside the village was what Konoha needed of him. Things inside the village were far from okay and Sakura knew that soon enough he’d be pulled into the mess that the upper ranks had created.

 

Just last week, Tsunade had appointed Inoichi as the next member of the council. 

 

Most of the village had been in accordance with her shishou but the Elders had protested. Loudly. They had been even more difficult to deal with recently and during their many recon missions, Team Ro had noticed them meeting up with Danzou more than once in private.

 

The Root agents surrounding the meetings kept them from actually hearing what they were about but the entire situation had put Tsunade and Sakura on edge. The pieces on the shogi board had been placed and each side was making their move.

 

Soon, she was sure the Copy-Nin would be called back to help deal with their rodent problem.

 

Sakura sighed and moved on from that aisle until she reached the fresh produce section.

 

She had also been worried about their Uchiha problem. Sakura had talked to Tsunade about sending someone to get in contact with Uchiha Itachi but the woman had shut her down. It wasn’t the time yet, she’d said, they had to be sure he wasn’t compromised first.

 

Sakura privately agreed that they had to play it safe but she didn’t know what exactly her shishou was waiting for. From the little she had disclosed, she figured Tsunade had someone tracking his movements but she couldn’t be sure.

 

Then there was Sasuke. 

 

There hadn’t been any news on his whereabouts for the last year, ever since Kakashi had led a raid on one of Orochimaru’s suspected hideouts. 

 

Sakura had to reach him. Having the sharingan on their side against Danzo and the elders would be a huge advantage and besides, he had the right to know what had happened during the Uchiha Massacre. As of now, he was focusing his hate on the wrong person and Sakura didn’t even want to think what would happen if he followed through on his promise to avenge his clan. 

 

Not that he could , she tried to reason with herself. Sasuke wasn’t strong enough to face off Itachi, even with Orochimaru’s help. They still had time to deal with this mess.

 

Sakura huffed annoyedly and put the pack of broccoli back before quickly turning towards the ice cream section. Fuck it, she deserved it.

 

In her haste, she didn’t realise someone had been standing on the other corner of the aisle. Her momentum was enough that she crashed right into the man, her forehead connecting painfully with his chin.

 

“Ow!” She rubbed at the tender spot and glared at the man even as her mouth formed the words to apologise. “I’m so—oh.”

 

Sakura trailed off when she recognized the man. It was the ANBU Commander.

 

He stood tall—though not taller than Kakashi, a distant part of her mind registered—and for some reason, the sight of him was jarring. His dark hair fell over his eyes as he stared at her in shock and he looked—he looked sleepy. 

 

His eyes were widened in surprise as he took her in, his hair a dishevelled mess. His white tee was wrinkled and he was wearing jogging pants. Everything about the situation looked wrong. It was deeply disturbing to realise that the man behind the ANBU cloak could look this endearingly messy.

 

The Commander had no right to stand in her shopping place with bed hair and sleepy eyes even if, okay, it wasn’t even seven in the morning on a Sunday.

 

“Sakura-chan!” And just like that, the sleepy, caught-off-guard look was replaced by his usual cheery smile and eye crinkle. The hand that wasn’t holding his shopping basket—three cartons of milk and nothing else in there—was suddenly on top of her head, messing up her already messy bun.

 

Annoying. He was so annoying.

 

Sakura slapped his hand away with more force than necessary but still put on a smile on her face to match his. 

 

“Toshio-san!” She greeted with false cheer in her voice, purposefully using his name so he’d know she did her homework on him. “Long time no see, eh?” 

 

The greeting is louder than it would normally be, mainly for the benefit of the old man paying for his things at the cashier. It took him an alarming five minutes to put his stuff inside his bag and leave, in which the Commander looked her over with an amused expression on his face as they faked small talk.

 

“I have a special assignment for you,” he spoke quietly once the old man left. Sakura looked in alarm towards where the old lady stood behind the counter reading a magazine and he followed her gaze. “Relax, Unmei-san is a retired member of the forces. We go way back.”

 

Sakura gaped at the old lady. She looked nothing like a shinobi in her pretty floral shirt and reading glasses. Though, when she looked at her with a keener eye, Sakura could see the old scar on her neck and that she was reading Tactical Life , a famous magazine among shinobi.

 

Sakura shook her head slightly to clear it before turning back towards the Commander.

 

“That sounds shady.” She raised an eyebrow at him, her voice flat and low, dropping all pretence now that she knew she could. “I’m not doing any special assignment if it means Tsunade doesn’t know about it.”

 

“Hai, hai.” He waved his hand dismissively, his amused grin firmly in place. “You already told me that, Sakura-chan. I was actually going to summon you tomorrow once Hokage-sama had a chance to speak to you about this. Why don’t you come by my office later today after you talk to her?”

 

Sakura’s eyes narrowed in consideration. Tsunade knew about this ‘special assignment’ so it wasn’t anything she didn’t agree to. Maybe this was a part of that extra work she had been promised—read: threatened with—when she officially joined ANBU? 

 

“What is this about?” She asked when the Commander made to leave. There’s no way she was going to wait until Tsunade was done with her meeting to find out. 

 

The Commander looked even more amused by her small outburst. The way his eyes were crinkling down at her looked like he was greatly entertained by her sudden interest and found her cute. It was downright insulting.

 

Still, he gave her an answer.

 

“It’s a side project I’ve tried to get approved every time a new Hokage steps up and so far only managed to convince the Godaime-sama.” He shrugged and then looked her straight in the eyes. “I want you to teach iryo-ninjutsu to anyone capable enough in the forces.”

 

What.

 

Sakura stared in shock as the Commander gave her a carefree wave and went to pay for his milk. 

 

Her? Teach ?

 

What about her missions? She didn’t have the time to sit down and carefully guide operatives twice her age on the extremely difficult art that was iryo-ninjutsu. Scratch that, was she even advanced enough on her medical studies to actually teach them?

 

She knew she was good at it. In fact, Tsunade had boasted that Sakura was probably better than all medics they had inside the hospital, her skills not surpassing only her own and maybe Shizune’s but still. Still.

 

Sakura finished her shopping and went to pay for her items, her mind running through different problems, coming up with solutions and then finding problems in those solutions.

 

“Will that be all, dear?” The old lady behind the counter smiled kindly at her and Sakura was struck by how understanding she looked.

 

“Unmei-obasan.” Sakura put the money on the tiny tray on top of the counter and looked up with wide eyes when the old woman held her wrist before she could pull back.

 

“What’s your name, child?” Her voice was lower now. It didn’t sound unkindly but it also wasn’t the normal cheerful way she greeted customers. 

 

“Haruno Sakura…” Sakura found herself answering before she even thought it through.

 

“Ah, Hokage-sama’s apprentice.” Unmei’s smile grew. “I’ve been hearing whispers about you. You’re destined for great things, that’s certain.”

 

Sakura’s jaw dropped. Not only was her name circling around the village already but what she’d said sounded… prophetic somehow. Sakura fought a shiver as the old lady continued.

 

“I did my fair share of fighting for the shadow corps in my time, dear, I know a good operative when I see one.” Unmei laughed and let go of her wrist. Sakura didn’t step back. “A word of advice? If your superiors are giving you extra work, you better trust their judgement. Even if you don’t think yourself capable, it’s your duty to make sure you rise up to the challenge, isn’t it?”

 

Sakura stared at the old woman for a beat longer before she realised her jaw was still somewhere in the vicinity of her own shoes and snapped her mouth shut. She felt her cheeks burning.

 

“Thank you, Unmei-san.” Sakura’s embarrassed nod was interrupted by Unmei’s laugh.

 

“Call me obaa-san, dear!” She waved her wrinkled little hands in the air. “And if you find some time, I’d be happy to tell someone about the old days. It’s not usual for an old operative like me to still be around, you know?”

 

“I’d like that… obaa-san.” Sakura gave the old woman a small genuine smile as she collected her groceries before bidding her goodbye.

 

Sakura left the store reeling. 

 

She made her way back to her house with her bag as full as her head. She had to talk to Tsunade. Before she tried to make a decision, she had to talk to her shishou.

 

She scarfed down her breakfast and left her hoodie at home before making her way to the Hokage Tower. She waved at the few people milling about the place but didn’t stop on her way to her shishou’s office.

 

“I can’t teach!”

 

Sakura blurted before the door was even halfway opened. Tsunade looked up from behind the pile of paperwork she was working on and raised an eyebrow at her.

 

“I take it the Commander reached you already,” she said calmly before going back to her work. 

 

“Shishou!” Sakura said urgently. She fully stepped inside the office and closed the door behind her. “I don’t have the time to teach iryo-ninjutsu to a bunch of masks.”

 

Tsunade rolled her eyes but put her pen down.

 

“Calm down, will you?” She snapped, annoyed. It didn’t look like Sakura had caught her shishou at a good time. That was confirmed when she heard her mutter to herself, “Barely even morning and I already have to deal with so much bullshit.”

 

Sakura snapped her mouth shut and sat dutifully on the chair next to her shishou. She pulled a few of the papers towards her and set to signing them. She might as well do some work now that she was already at the office. They remained silently working side by side while Sakura calmed her breath.

 

“Do you really think I can teach medical ninjutsu?” Sakura asked quietly, without looking at the woman. From the corner of her eyes she could see Tsunade turning to shoot her a grin.

 

“You’re not supposed to give out formal lessons, Sakura.” Tsunade went back to her own paperwork but her elbow nudged Sakura’s lightly. “You’re going to teach experienced shinobi how to do a better job at keeping each other alive in the field. None of these lessons are supposed to make them ready to operate at the hospital or anything like that.”

 

“Okay…” Sakura said slowly. 

 

Her pen was still poised over the scroll she’d been reading, ready to sign, but she could only frown at the proposal in front of her. This time, Tsunade dropped her work and turned towards her.

 

“This isn’t an order.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully at her when Sakura turned her head to give her full attention. “This is entirely up to you. I know it’s a lot to ask but I think you can handle it. Maybe we can’t have a medic in every team but we can give a try at teaching something to ANBU. You said it yourself that this type of thing wouldn’t be feasible in my time but this is something we can do.” She paused. “ You can.”

 

Sakura’s heart swelled with the immensity of the meaning behind her shishou’s words. She was trusting Sakura to start a project that she had fought for and had been denied. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the same thing but it was a start. 

 

“What about my training?” Sakura asked, brows furrowed.

 

Tsunade scoffed.

 

“I already taught you everything I know, girl.” She put a heavy hand on top of Sakura’s messy bun and shook her head a bit. “You’re a jounin now. A far better one than I was at that age, even. The only thing missing before I can safely say I can’t teach you anything else is a tiny little seal.”

 

Tsunade let go of her head and flicked her in the middle of her forehead with a laugh. 

 

Sakura’s eyes widened as her shishou went back to her work. Obviously, she’d known all of those things before but she hadn’t really thought about them. The only thing left for her to do was master her Byakugou Seal. 

 

She’d been storing chakra in the tenketsu right in the middle of her forehead ever since her shishou first started taking her training more seriously, almost three years before. She had become familiarised with the pathways her chakra took and it was relatively easy to create a reserve inside the tenketsu.

 

Over the years, Sakura had mastered the art of storing chakra into that spot. She had many headaches those first few weeks but it was only a matter of acclimatising herself to that constant drain on her reserves.

 

The kind of old jutsu required for the seal to form was obscure. No one really knew a lot about it but the way Tsunade had explained it to her all those years ago made it sound like the seal pretty much… created itself.

 

Once a certain amount of chakra was inserted, the physical manifestation of the seal would appear over her tenketsu and she wouldn’t need to put any more effort into directing it there. 

 

She didn’t know how but she could feel she was close. It was like her whole body suddenly vibrated with the knowledge that she was almost ready. Just a little bit more and she would be able to say she was on Tsunade’s level.

 

Inner Sakura scoffed at that idea as she went back to signing paperwork. 

 

Sure, she had reached the limit of what her shishou could actually teach her but there were still decades of experience that put Tsunade ahead of her. Sakura could maybe take her on on a fight and win if she was really, really lucky and only if she went in with the intention to kill and not to win a friendly spar. She wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to think she could reach her shishou’s level so fast.

 

Maybe in a few years, she thought, maybe then I can have enough experience to safely say I could stand by Tsunade’s side.

 

Sakura froze. 

 

Her pen pressed heavily on top of the scroll and ink blotted the word she’d been writing. Sakura stared at it with a blank face.

 

A couple of years before her goal had been to stand by Naruto and Sasuke’s side. She wanted to reach their level, show them that she didn’t need to stay behind them anymore and be protected. Sure, some part of her still wanted that but…

 

When had it changed as a priority? Nowadays, she’d been using Tsunade as a goal and thoughts of the boys had rarely gone through her mind the more she felt a part of Team Ro.

 

Sakura took a shaky breath and pushed those thoughts away. They filled her with regret and made her second guess herself, made her question her loyalties in a way she wasn’t comfortable dealing with. 

 

She turned towards Tsunade with a sly smile as Inner pushed those troubling thoughts deep inside her mind.

 

“You know, Shishou.” She wiggled her eyebrows even though Tsunade wasn’t looking at her. “I think I know what the Commander’s deal is.”

 

“Oh?” Tsunade continued with her work.

 

“He’s testing you.” Sakura twirled her pen in her hand and huffed a laugh when Tsunade turned a fake exaggeratedly surprised look her way. 

 

“Is he now?” 

 

“Ye p .” Sakura nodded. “He said something about how he brought this project to both the Sandaime and the Yondaime and they both refused. I think you just scored some points with the guy.”

 

“Fantastic,” Tsunade said, sarcastically. “I’ll be sure to trade those for chips at the casino.”

 

“I’m serious!” Sakura giggled. “You know having him on our side is important.” Sakura could practically feel her shishou’s eyes rolling even though they were both turned away from each other and focused on their work. “Maybe you can ask him to come by for a drink, reach out, you know.”

 

“Sakura, are you trying to set me up with the guy?” 

 

Sakura barked an unexpected laugh.

 

“Shishou! No!” She shook her head and they both turned to look at the other. Tsunade was smiling. Sakura smirked. “Unless you need to blow off some steam, I’m sure no one would begrudge you…”

 

Tsunade rolled her eyes at Sakura’s wiggling brow.

 

“What would you know about that, brat.”

 

“Shut up.” Sakura kicked at Tsunade’s ankles beneath the table but it didn’t hide her blushing cheeks.

 

Tsunade was right. Sakura had almost no experience in that department even though she had been on some seduction missions already with Team Ro. All those missions had made her pretty good at going far enough to get her target to want them to take it somewhere more private but she’d never had to cross that line on the field.

 

Ino, of course, has had plenty of boyfriends already. She loved going out with the civilian boys she met around the village and always liked to share everything with Sakura in excruciating detail. 

 

She had long since shed any animosity towards Ino. Their competition only served as a source of amusement to them both nowadays and Sakura was glad they had moved past it. She had changed too much to fit comfortably into that role of ‘nemesis’—or even ‘frenemy’.

 

While Ino had progressed steadily with Team 10, she got to live a life that Sakura didn’t. The blonde had clan responsibilities, trainings and missions just like everyone else but she still had a lot of downtime. She could socialise with people her own age and experiment with clueless boys, have dates and go to parties.

 

Sakura couldn’t even think about ever being with a civilian.

 

The things she’d been through had set her apart from them. She couldn’t be herself with a boy that had no idea what it felt like to have someone’s life on his hands. While she liked the idea of having that type of fun Ino had, she couldn’t see herself being comfortable enough in that scene.

 

In that aspect, Sakura envied Ino. 

 

“Oh, no,” Tsunade said, ripping Sakura from her thoughts. The blonde shot her an amused look. “Please don’t tell me I just unlocked your curiosity .”

 

Sakura blushed again, her cheeks burning even brighter when Tsunade laughed. 

 

“We are not talking about this, Shishou,” Sakura said as firmly as she could.

 

“Come on, Sakura~” Tsunade put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s only normal—”

 

“Okay! Bye, Shishou!” Sakura stood up abruptly and made for the open window behind the desk. “I gotta go tell your boyfriend the news.”

 

Sakura left the office just in time to dodge the paperweight thrown towards her.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Going into the ANBU headquarters with her civilian clothes on was an extremely thought out act on her part. 

 

Regulations didn’t specifically say she had to wear her full uniform at all times so she wasn’t technically breaking any rules but it would still raise some eyebrows. That’s exactly what she wanted.

 

She flared her chakra briefly but didn’t pause to knock on his door.

 

Toshio was sitting behind a dark wooden desk, signing mission scrolls. He made a point of continuing his work as if she wasn’t there before putting down his pen and smiling at her benignly. 

 

“Come in, Sakura-chan!” He gestured an open hand towards the single chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”

 

Sakura’s eyes narrowed in on the dried blood on his hand and she cocked her head to the side. She took a step forward and leaned her hip on the uncomfortable looking chair but didn’t seat down. 

 

Toshio looked at her with a mildly amused expression on his face but didn’t press.

 

“Did you come to a decision?” 

 

“I’ll do it,” Sakura said without preambles. “My duty is to serve Konoha in any way it needs me. If you and Tsunade-shishou think this is how I can be of help, then I’ll do it.”

 

Tsunade-shishou, not Tsunade-sama or Hokage-sama. Sakura was stating her fealty to the village but making it clear she wasn’t just anyone. She was the Hokage’s apprentice and he was asking her to take up higher responsibilities because she was literally the only one who could help him. That came with a certain shift in their interactions. 

 

Yes, he was her Commander, but the power balance had just shifted slightly towards her.

 

“I’m happy to hear it.” And he did seem happy about it. His smile was more sincere than ever although his crinkled eyes showed her he was fully aware of what she wasn’t saying. He heard her, but he also saw the hidden meanings beneath her words, her choice of clothes and even the way she stood inside his office. 

 

Underneath the underneath, wasn’t it? Sakura wondered if he’d been the one to teach Kakashi that.

 

“I have a few conditions, of course,” she said, crossing her arms loosely in front of her.

 

“Of course.” His eyes twinkled with amusement as he leaned back on his chair. “So do I.”

 

“I don’t want my team to be compromised by this.” Sakura kept herself short and to the point. “I imagine you’re going to cut back on my missions so I can spend more time inside the village. I don’t want them to be sent without a medic out there and even less so for them to get paid less because of the lower mission frequency.”

 

“We won’t be cutting back on your missions, Wolfie-chan.” Sakura raised her eyebrows at him and fought back a reaction at the nickname. “While this is important, I would be a fool to mess up the perfect balance Team Ro has found with you.”

 

“I… thank you?” Sakura blinked at him. Her surprise at the direct compliment made her break her façade. His amused chuckle made her stand up straighter and narrow her eyes at him. 

 

“This project will be set up like workshops. While I won’t cut back on your missions, I will stop any back to back missions Team Ro has and try to direct the team to less time consuming assignments while outside the village,” Toshio explained. “My first condition is that the workshops should last at least four hours. I’ll let you know which days at least a month ahead and will coordinate those with your team’s schedule.”

 

“And that still won’t decrease the mission income for Team Ro?” Sakura asked, just to be sure.

 

“Whenever I feel like you need to spend more time inside the village, Team Ro will be assigned to the Hokage’s Platoon,” Toshio said simply. “As you know, ninja assigned to that particular mission have a better salary… as do teachers.” 

 

“Oh,” Sakura said dumbly. 

 

She really hadn’t stopped to think that she was going to be a teacher. Being a teacher in their world meant being in the highest standing, their salary was at least double that of a normal shinobi, according to their rank. 

 

“Yeah, oh ,” Toshio said with a carefree laugh. “That brings me to my other condition. It’s not usual for inexperienced shinobi to be made teachers so I thought we could appease more traditional members by giving you a better standing inside the shadow ranks.” 

 

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked, confused. She didn’t like the Commander’s responding grin.

 

“I’m making you captain.” Toshio laughed at her flabbergasted expression and continued, “Ideally, no one would ever become captain without a lot of practice first but that’s not usually what happens here in ANBU. I want to slowly prepare you for that title. Maybe six months?”

 

“I—how… You want me to captain another team on top of everything else?” Sakura blustered through her exclamation. Was he insane?

 

“No, of course not.” He rolled his eyes in a way that clearly said, you idiot. “Tenzou will be your mentor in this. You’ll co-captain Team Ro for the next six months until he says you’re ready to become a full-fledged captain. As of now, you are officially Wolf-taichou.”

 

Sakura stared at him for a few beats. The Commander had an amused little smile on his face as he rested against the back of his chair. After a while, he scrunched up his nose uncomfortably and a small trickle of blood came out of it only to be wiped clean by his hand. So that’s where the dried blood had come from.

 

“Did you get into a brawl, Commander-san ?” Sakura immediately snapped into action, rounding his desk so she could reach him better. Unceremoniously, she grabbed his chin in her hands and tilted his head up and towards her. The way his whole body tensed up was highly satisfying even if his voice was annoyingly smooth when he spoke next.

 

“It’s common for captains to spar together between missions.” Sakura smirked at the way his words squished together because of her hold on him. With her other hand, she applied chakra to his nose. “I like to join in sometimes. Makes me feel less old.”

 

The personal admission had surprised him as much as it had her from the slight twitch he couldn’t hide from this close. 

 

Huh, Inner thought, who knew we could grow to like the Commander.

 

“I’m looking forward to participating in those spars soon.” Sakura stepped back, her work done, and went back to the other side of the desk. With a tired sigh, she sprawled lazily on one of the chairs. She’d been right, they were uncomfortable. “Think I’ll have to kick a lot of ass before others start respecting me?”

 

She used his accidental oversharing to open up a bit herself. What she’d said to Tsunade about getting closer to the Commander was a bit of harmless jest but it held some truth to it. So far, everything pointed to him being a possible asset to their fight and it wouldn’t hurt to let him get closer. 

 

“I think you naturally inspire trust and respect, Wolfie-taichou.” Despite the shit-eating grin on his face and the blasted nickname, Sakura was surprised by how candid he sounded. “You’ll make a good leader, I’m sure.” 

 

“Hopefully I’ll make a good teacher too,” Sakura said, a slight sigh to her words. Tsunade-shishou had not been kidding about her taking more responsibility. Sakura waved a mental goodbye at any prospect of free time in the near future.

 

“I know you will, Sacchan.” Toshio shrugged, his cheery grin growing.

 

Sakura huffed a small laugh. Damn him for saying such encouraging things while still being an annoying pain in her ass.

 

Even as she rolled her eyes at the Commander’s antics, Sakura felt a small pang go through her chest. The only person who had ever called her ‘Sacchan’ had been her father. 

 

Over the years, she had gotten used to the almost radio silence between her and her parents but in times like these where she accomplished something huge, she still had the urge to go tell them. 

 

That urge had gotten significantly smaller and less present the more time passed and they refused to seek her out, but it was still there. 

 

She could only hope there would come a time where she could be at their side and not feel like she was a failure in their eyes. 

.

 

.

 

.

 

 

Sooooo that happened. Lol the more I write about the Commander, the more I like him. I hope you guys do too. It just seemed so odd that this prominent figure (he's the ANBU Commander, dude) not be talked about at all?? I guess you could say Naruto wasn't really supposed to know much about ANBU and stuff but still, this guys was on the meeting with the Daimyo. We could have had at least one sentence come out of his mouth. Anyway.

I have so many things to say to you guys!!! 

First, some notes on the chapter! I always liked this idea that the next step for Sakura was going to be becoming captain but I felt like it was a nice touch to have Sakura first lead a project that Tsunade herself would have killed or at that age. Playing with the will of fire here hehe. I'm sure you guys have lots of questions about this so hit me up in the comments, okay? Either way, next chapter will definitely answer some of those questions and explain how these workshops will work a bit better. 

About her becoming a captain...ish. My wonderful Beta, A, was a bit confused by this so I thought I'd address some things here. In paper, Sakura will officially be Team Ro's co-captain. In practice, she'll mostly lead Team Ro while Tenzou guides her for about six months so she could get some real practice while still being in a kind of controlled environment and by that I mean if she makes a mistake she won't kill anybody 'cus Tenzou will be there to guide her. Now, let me explain why that makes sense in my head. 

I've read some fics (I'll link it down below because it's amazing) that when someone from ANBU is promoted to captain, they have to move to another team to effectively lead it. I get that, and in my universe that still happens to some extent. Remember when Toshio said: "ideally, no one would become a captain without having practice?" Well, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes, they would have a demand for more teams and hire more new operatives that would need someone leading them and so people would get promoted. But in an ideal world where they don't have to worry about having more teams, it doesn't make sense to just put someone as a leader no matter how much experience they have inside a team. A leader's job is very different from a normal operative. Now, I see ANBU as a more fluid organisation than some might. By that I mean that while Team Ro is a set team, I don't picture them exclusively taking missions with each other. Maybe there will be a certain mission that will need Tenzou's abilities paired off with a sensor-nin, I don't know. I do think they prioritize keeping people in the same team for the sake of familiarity. But think of jounin ranks for a bit and let's take Neji as an example. He's a jounin, so technically he could lead a team, right? Only he mainly works within Team Gai. That doesn't mean that he couldn't lead a team if there was a need for that. You see what I mean? 

So yeah, if you don't understand where I'm coming from or disagree or even just wanna talk some more about it, hit me up.

Originally, this chapter was going to be fucken huge but I split it in two because things just weren't working. Being on a three month long writer's block was absolute hell for me, y'all. I'm so so sorry for taking this long to post something new i.i Please leave me some love on the comments 'cus I seriously need it lol. I hope everyone is safe and well! Please let me know what you think :)

Some links!!

The fic I was talking about, it's AMAZING. I've been reading it for a while and it's always fun to see the similarities between that and DoF even though I've never even spoken to the author and we probably live like completely different lives. Here you go if you wanna check it out it's called Masks by madstoryteller999

Also, the post I was telling you guys about! It's a beautiful KakaSaku drawing over on Tumblr 

By the way, come say hi on Tumblr! I changed my username to justjstuff 

See you all soon!! 

~J

Chapter 25: Daughter of Fire

Notes:

Hiya, everyone!

You guys were so amazing with your reviews last chapter! Thank you so much <3

I'm actually super excited for this chapter hehe Enjoy ;)

Sakura adjusted a piece of her hair in the mirror and sighed for the third time that late afternoon. 

 

The morning after she had accepted Toshio’s offer, a courier had delivered a formal letter from her parents. Apparently, the Tachibana would be around for some business meetings and would attend the Spring Festival that night and it was important for Sakura to show her face.

 

Of course, the letter was filled with empty platitudes made to appeal to her softer side and guilt trip her into going. 

 

We respect your choices, would have sounded nice and all if it hadn’t been followed by: but please understand how your presence is indispensable. 

 

Sakura had agreed in part because she didn’t want to let the resentment she felt towards her parents fester but mostly because her mission schedules were still being worked out and she had nothing better to do.

 

She had outgrown all her yukata a while back and mostly used them around the house so a shopping trip had been in order. Not that any of the girls had complained when she roped them into coming with her but it had been a slightly uncomfortable afternoon for Sakura.

 

It had been jarring to be lazily walking around the village, picking out clothes while her friends chattered away. It’s not as if she was like Kakashi, who barely stepped foot inside the village, but it was still weird for her to not be busy either training or getting ready for some mission.

 

She had refused to buy the overly expensive pink yukata Ino had pushed towards her and settled for a simple midnight blue one with silver and white petals adorning the sleeves and hem. It came with a pretty silver obi with a white flower pattern that had been a bitch to tie and Sakura tried to convince herself that her parents wouldn’t mind her not wearing a kimono.

 

Technically this festival wasn’t supposed to be any kind of formal and while she may have agreed to go she was absolutely not gonna spend the night in a constricting kimono.

 

“Can’t you tell people I was suddenly called away on a mission?” Sakura asked when she noticed Tsunade leaning against her bedroom door.

 

“I could,” Tsunade shot her a cheeky grin, “but I won’t.”

 

Sakura sighed again and gave her shishou a pointed look through the mirror. 

 

“Any particular reason?” She noticed the blonde woman holding a wooden box in her hands and raised an eyebrow at it.

 

“Because then you wouldn’t have a place to make a dramatic first appearance with the gift your poor shishou spent a lot of time thinking on.” Tsunade presented the box to her and this time her grin was small, more uncertain.

 

Sakura took it into her hands and stared at the gold engraving of the Senju symbol on top of it. 

 

“Shishou…” Sakura looked at Tsunade with wide eyes. “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

 

“This is a… representation of my Jounin graduation gift to you, Sakura.”

 

The use of her name had Sakura’s heartbeat doubling inside her chest. Whatever this box held inside was something Tsunade was serious about. She was surprised her hands didn’t shake as she opened it. 

 

Tsunade stepped forward to take the box so Sakura could take out the fabric inside it.

 

She unfolded a haori, just like Tsunade’s in shape but instead of green it was the same shade of red from her old qipao dress. The linings were white and it would have fit right into a Haruno clan gathering if not for the kanji etched in bold black strokes inside a white circle right in the middle of it.

 

火 の 娘  

 

Hi no Musume.

 

Daughter of Fire.

 

“I know it’s not much alone but I figured if you’re going to be my heir you should have a piece of my legacy with you at all times.” Tsunade was speaking while Sakura stared entranced at the haori in her hands, her voice a little wobbly but she powered through it. “My own haori was a kind of a middle finger to everyone who shamed me for gambling too much but in my head it was a physical representation of my spirit, my defiance. It’s what my ojii-san told me when he had it made for me when I was still a little girl.

 

You’re not a little girl anymore, Sakura. You’re a woman forged in fire . You’re loyal and fierce and smarter than anyone has any business being. There’s no one else worthy of continuing the Senju legacy like you are. You’re a true daughter of fire.”

 

“Shishou…” Sakura whispered, with tears in her eyes. When she finally managed to tear her attention away from the haori and meet the blonde’s amber eyes, she saw them burning bright with tears as well. Tsunade’s familiarly fierce grin was stretching her painted lips.

 

“For a long time, I tried to forget Konoha and my clan. I ran because staying was too painful for me to bear at the time. Ever since I came back, taking you in as my apprentice was the best decision I’ve ever made. You made me remember how in love I’ve always been with this village, all that my family built and cherished. I can’t thank you enough for standing beside me while we fight for Konoha.”

 

“You don’t need to—there’s no need—” Sakura gasped. “ Shishou. It’s an honour to be able to fight by your side.”

 

“Well,” Tsunade clapped her hands and let out a loud bark of a laugh, “I take it this means you understand everything behind this gift.”

 

“You mean…” Sakura trailed off uncertainly because she didn’t want to assume anything.

 

“I mean that, as my apprentice, I expect you to take on the Senju legacy when I die. My Will of Fire will pass on to you and with it comes everything in my name including this estate and everything in it. Every fuinjutsu scroll, all the properties and money we have left. Anything with a Senju symbol in it will be yours.” Tsunade’s smile showed a hint of nervousness now. “That’s it… if you want it, of course. It’s a lot to take on.”

 

Sakura just gaped at her for a second before hurriedly putting the haori on top of her newly bought yukata. 

 

“Shishou…” Sakura smiled at Tsunade and if there were tears in her eyes, they didn’t bother commenting on them. “I’d be honoured.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Finding her parents had been easy. She’d taken Ino as a buffer to the stands that held fine silks and, behind it, a traditional tea ceremony was being held for some of the civilian clans. 

 

Technically, she should have been wearing a kimono for this, but she figured her parents were already asking for a lot and they should be grateful she even showed up at all to stand by their side. 

 

So what if she wasn’t wearing the appropriate clothing for a fucking tea ceremony . She was also serving as a representative of the Hokage that night. She was the Godaime’s apprentice, a jounin of Konoha and most recently appointed co-captain of an ANBU squad. 

 

Appropriate clothing for her meant at least five hidden knives and a small pouch with some of her shishou’s undetectable poison.

 

The exchange between her parents and her was strained but Ino and her own parents were there so it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. Even though she didn’t really know anymore how to interact with her mum and dad, her personal brand of detached politeness she wore when dealing with clan elders at the office seemed to do the trick.

 

She knew they were thrown off guard by it but it kept the conversation civil enough that no one could say anything about it.

 

She focused her attention on talking office work with Inoichi-ojisan, who had been appointed as the newest council member a few weeks before. It was gratifying to see the look on her dad’s face when he realised just how much she was involved in Konoha’s political game.

 

Tachibana Sadatoshi arrived just as the ceremony ended and their small group started moving towards the eastern bridge so they could watch the fireworks. The fact that the oldest of the brothers addressed her right after he did her father and before anyone else wasn’t lost on anyone.

 

Sadatoshi was an imposing man in theory—he was one of Iron’s most prestigious merchants on top of being a skilled samurai, after all—but nothing could prepare someone for how dominating his presence was in person. 

 

He was lean and tall, his fair skin contrasting attractively with his dark hair—always up in a high ponytail. He wore traditional hakama and kimono, both black with white linings, and a dark green haori on top of everything. Even inside the village, he wore his katana on his hip. The corner of his mouth was elongated by a fine silvery scar that stretched upwards slightly when he saw her.   

 

“Sakura-san.” He bowed his head and Sakura acknowledged it with a nod of her own that went no lower than his. “It has been a while.”

 

“It has, Sadatoshi-sama.” Sakura couldn’t help the tiniest of smirks at her and Ino’s mother's sharp intake of breath. They hadn’t been expecting this level of familiarity and respect between them. “I hope we can properly catch up tomorrow at the meeting.”

 

“Oh?” Her father interjected. “I wasn’t aware we would be having a meeting so soon after you arrived, Sadatoshi-sama.”

 

“The meeting with the other merchants is still firmly scheduled for the day after, Kizashi-san,” Tachibana explained, the scar on the left side of his lips stretching his tiny smile further than it actually went. “Tsunade is an old friend, she kindly invited me to have lunch at her estate tomorrow. I could hardly expect Sakura-san not to be at her own house for lunch.”

 

It was the first time anyone had even mentioned her moving out that night. The pause that followed it was thick with tension and Sakura could only try to defuse it as she hoped that something would happen to break their little group up.

 

“I should probably mention that I’ll be a bit late, Sadatoshi-sama.” Sakura smiled disarmingly at him as she explained. “I have some business during the morning that can possibly take a few hours longer than expected.”

 

Tomorrow morning would be her first workshop for ANBU and it was nerve-wracking enough that Sakura wasn’t even anxious about the following ‘lunch date’ with the Tachibana. Speaking of, where the hell was Shinsei when he was needed as a distraction?

 

“Arriving late for lunch is deeply disrespectful, Sakura,” her mother chastised her even as her face kept placidly polite. “Surely you can move that… business to another day.”

 

“Other people depend on me, mother. I can’t just simply move the date on a whim.” Sakura kept her voice light enough even when everything inside her was fighting an eye roll. Inner cursed loudly in the back of her mind.

 

“A mission, I gather?” Tachibana asked, his blue gaze fixed on her. There was respect in his voice and it seemed to stop her mother from further commenting.

 

“Of sorts…” Sakura trailed off, uncertain on how much to reveal while still being polite.

 

Her eyes sought out Inoichi-ojisan to see if he would be of any help.

 

“Most of Sakura-chan’s work nowadays is strictly classified, I’m afraid.” He laughed and put a hand on her shoulder. Sakura smiled at him in gratitude and it was maybe her first genuine expression of the night since joining them. She felt Ino shift slightly closer towards her.

 

“Yamanaka-san, I hear congratulations are in order—” Tachibana started but was promptly interrupted by a body dropping from one of the trees closest to them.

 

It was a young man, mostly hidden in the shadows but the light was enough for Sakura to notice his hair was up in a ponytail. He was wearing a traditional hakama and kimono set much like Tachibana’s, only his were blood red with a black haori on top. Sakura didn’t startle like most of them did but the hairs on the back of her neck still raised on end because she hadn’t felt him. 

 

There was mostly no chakra coming from him and he had stayed quiet enough since they arrived at the bridge that she hadn’t been able to locate him earlier. He was definitely a civilian, then. Only, what was a civilian doing jumping from a tree so carelessly like that?

 

The man took a step forward and Sakura’s breath caught in her throat. It was— 

 

“Shinsei,” Tachibana greeted him with his usual monotone voice and slightly narrowed his eyes at him. Shinsei smirked at him and threw a careless arm around his shoulders. Sakura thought if Tachibana was less stoical, there would be a vein on his forehead.

 

“Aniki!” Shinsei called loudly and cheerfully as if they weren’t standing side by side. Tachibana’s eyebrow twitched. “Ooh~! What a gorgeous sight for sore eyes!”

 

The young man grabbed Ino’s mother’s hand and placed a gentle kiss on it while roguishly smirking at her. Sakura watched with detached amusement as her own mother clenched her jaw.

 

She had always competed with Yamanaka Honoka in almost everything since moving to Konoha. Ino and Sakura had learned from them quite a few bad habits.

 

“Shinsei,” Tachibana warned, his voice monotone as always but with a tense undercurrent that made Sakura slightly nostalgic. When they had first met, he’d always admonished Shinsei for anything and everything, amusement always hidden behind harsh words and looks. Sakura smiled at them.

 

Shinsei, on his part, simply ignored his brother as his eyes roved over their party. His eyebrow lifted when he saw Ino but then his gaze met Sakura’s and he stopped completely. 

 

“Kunoichi-chan?” His shocked face was slowly morphing into a grin that only grew as his eyes roved appreciatively over her figure. “Well, I don’t know about you, but my night just got deliciously better.”

 

He unceremoniously stepped forward and grabbed her wrist before beginning to pull her back towards the woods. 

 

“What are you doing?” Ino exclaimed both at Shinsei for dragging her and Sakura for letting him.

 

“ Shinsei. ” Tachibana was glaring now but he didn’t protest much more when he saw the slight smile on Sakura’s face. 

 

“What, aniki ?” Shinsei challenged with a careless and slightly mischievous grin. “Isn’t this the whole reason for coming all the way to a festival we couldn’t care less about? Possibly securing a match between the exquisite Haruno Sakura and I?”

 

There was a tense pause and Sakura caught Ino gapping at them while the others showed various degrees of awkwardness. While Sakura had come to that conclusion long ago, she didn’t expect it to be spoken so freely like that. She thought that while the Tachibana visited she was safe with playing the same old veiled threats and posturing that came with clan politics. 

 

“That’s never gonna happen,” Inner blurted through her mouth without her consent. Deciding to go along with it, Sakura scoffed. Fuck civilian politics. She was a kunoichi and no one could possibly expect her to enter an arranged marriage forced by her civilian clan. She was done pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

 

Shinsei laughed.

 

“Well,” he teased while stooping down to throw her over his shoulders. Sakura rolled her eyes but let him. He looked like he had a plan to get them both out of that mess. “I think it’s perfectly acceptable for me to get to know my possible future wife, seeing as she needs a bit of convincing. Ta~!”

 

And with that he jumped. 

 

Sakura had let him put her over his shoulder because she sensed he’d be getting her out of this stupid night but she hadn’t expected that. Because it wasn’t a normal, civilian jump. It was an enhanced one that only a higher calibre of shinobi could pull off.

 

And she didn’t even feel any chakra fluctuations. He moved so fast through the trees that they would probably be only a blur to the untrained eye. 

 

As soon as Shinsei’s feet touched the ground, Sakura had her senbon-turned-hairpin prickling the skin of his throat, her own feet firmly bracing against the forest floor so she could reach him.

 

“How did you do that?” Her voice was deceptively calm as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. While red lanterns lit up the bridge, the waxing moon was the only source of illumination this far into the woods but it took less than a second for her trained eyes to pick up everything around them. Including his raised hands.

 

“Relax, kitten.” He smirked at her and Sakura lowered her weapon when she saw there was no hostility in his posture and eyes. “Did you really think samurai were that useless? We have a reputation for a reason, ya know.”

 

Sakura blinked at him. While she had wondered why samurai were considered such a threat that no one dared challenge their territory even with war waging all around the Land of Iron, she had never really stopped to think about it.

 

Shinsei winked at her and took a step back. Sakura slowly secured her senbon beneath her sleeve and accepted that she wouldn’t be able to put her hair up again without a mirror. Shinsei pulled a familiar pipe from inside his vest and slowly lit it.

 

“How? I can’t detect any chakra above a civilian’s level.” Sakura shook her head slightly.

 

“Sorry, can’t tell you, beautiful.” Shinsei’s smirk grew when Sakura’s cheeks flushed. He reached inside his vest again and came back with a leather-bound flask. “I can, however, offer a proper apology for the dramatic exit in the form of booze.”

 

Sakura huffed a tiny laugh. What the hell. After having to see and interact with her parents after more than two years of silence, she deserved it.

 

Shinsei smoked while she took a few sips before he offered to trade with her. Again, what the hell.

 

“You’re telling me that we fucking walked all the way to Tetsu no Kuni while we could have been there in a fraction of the time we took?” Sakura glared at him, her eyes twinkling with amusement as she exhaled a cloud of smoke on his face. Shinsei shrugged.

 

“Y’all assumed we couldn’t take a harsh pace through the trees so we decided to keep up pretences.” He grinned like the big jerk he was and traded with her again so he could take another gulp of the cheap whisky inside the leather-covered flask.

 

Sakura shook her head but didn’t say anything else. She wondered why he was carrying a worker’s drink when he probably had more money than a small village.

 

“So.” He pushed the flask into her hands again and took back the pipe. “Did you know about their master plan of rudely marrying us off?”

 

Sakura scoffed.

 

“That would never have happened.” After a second of consideration, she added, “No offense.”

 

“None taken, Kunoichi-chan.” He shrugged. “You’re wonderful but that doesn’t mean I want to be married off to you either.”

 

Sakura cocked her head to the side and eyed him contemplatively before taking another swig of the flask.

 

“Why not?” She handed him the drink and refused the pipe before leaning back against a tree. “I thought it would be a good thing to have me as a Tachibana. If my father’s cousin doesn’t produce any offspring, I’ll be heir. Not to mention my connections as the Hokage’s apprentice.”

 

“Would you look at that.” He laughed. “Looks like someone got more confident with age.”

 

She had. But this wasn’t about her getting cocky or anything. These were just the facts.

 

“Besides, I imagine you’re required to produce some heirs of your own eventually.” Sakura decided to ignore his comment. She continued, “But I guess it’s more important for your brother to continue the Tachibana lineage than you.”

 

“That would be true.” Shinsei smiled but there was nothing humorous in the expression. Something so wry and… sad didn’t fit on his face. “Except he can’t.”

 

“Can’t?” Sakura raised an eyebrow.

 

Shinsei—who she suspected had been more than a little bit tipsy by the time he reached their group—leaned his weight against the same tree as her and told her a story while they drank. 

 

Without looking at her, his eyes focused on the moon, he told her how Sadatoshi was in love with a woman that had been a high member of one of Iron’s clans but had disguised herself to fight as a samurai. 

 

They met both in battle and in court and when they married, he had supported and even helped her keep her identity a secret. They had been happy for a few years before Death had taken her and their unborn child.

 

Shinsei didn’t falter in his words even though Sakura could see how much he had also cared for the nameless woman. Sadatoshi hadn’t been the only one to lose her. 

 

The Tachibana’s loss had happened a few years before Sakura met them and likely made them who they were today. Sadatoshi, a stoic man bound by tradition and honour but still enamoured by the idea that shinobi were to be respected, especially kunoichi. Shinsei, tirelessly flamboyant and flirty to compensate for how sad he truly felt.

 

Sakura felt sorry for both of them. Sadatoshi couldn’t and wouldn’t marry again and now the duty to uphold their family name had fallen on Shinsei, who she couldn’t even imagine settling down and having children.

 

“So he’s forcing you to continue the family name?” Sakura asked quietly because she didn’t want to break the sadness filled silence that had fallen upon them. 

 

“No,” Shinsei breathed after a beat. When he didn’t offer anything else, Sakura turned her head to properly look at him. After he took another sip, he turned his head so their eyes could meet. “Aniki knows I don’t intend on settling down and never wanted kids of my own. We’ve settled on adopting young samurai but some clan elders insisted we considered you first, so here we are.”

 

He smiled when he saw her shocked face and then offered the flask again. Sakura released a barely audible laugh and accepted the drink. She was surprised by their decision, adoption rarely was an option for high standing clans like theirs. Their decision to deceive the elders into thinking they would comply with their requests was also something she very much sympathised with.

 

“Your mission back then was to seduce me, wasn’t it?” He said after a quiet moment of them drinking, surprising the breath out of her lungs.

 

She was already feeling tipsy to show that much emotion. And also for answering with the truth.

 

“It wasn’t the primary mission, no.” She offered the flask back towards him and swore off it for the rest of the night. “But it would help if I did so I set it as an on-field objective.”

 

Instead of being angry like she half expected him to be, Shinsei laughed. His shoulder shook where it met hers and she felt the air shifting when he finally turned his head to look at her. Sakura was reminded of how nice his laugh was, her whisky warmed belly heating even further.

 

“ Kunoichi-chan ,” he whispered mockingly at her, intimately. When it was clear he was waiting for her to look at him, Sakura turned with a slightly raised brow, her face reflecting nothing else. “Not so little anymore, are you?”

 

An involuntary shiver ran down her back. She could feel his warm breath on her face and see that his eyes were darkened. He smelled like the pipe he’d smoked and rich foreign spice. Sakura wondered if that’s what he’d taste like. She couldn’t quite remember.

 

Then she thought why work in speculation when she could test her memory?

 

With calm curiosity, she closed the distance between their lips and breathed him in. Shinsei wasn’t startled into inaction like he’d been on their last, untimely kiss. He simply raised his warm hand to cup her jaw and slightly angled her face up so he could slant his lips properly against hers.

 

Sakura didn’t know who instigated the deepening of the kiss, only that suddenly she could confirm that yes, he did taste like rich spices and smoke. She wondered now how he’d taste elsewhere. 

 

During the many missions Team Ro had taken, Sakura had played many roles. Medic, assassin, backup. 

 

Then there were the truly undercover ones. 

 

Daughter. Sister. Orphan. Bait. Always bait.

 

The missions had never been classified as honeypot missions but there had been an amount of physicality involved. It had never gotten too far, though. With her medical abilities, she only needed to do enough to get their targets alone in a room and then put them to sleep. Still, Sakura had learned a lot and most importantly she had learned how to take a certain kind of pleasure from that.

 

The first time with Shinsei she had watched the bright eyed, cheeks flushed state she had put him in and felt powerful. She loved the idea that she could have that kind of control over someone even as in her mind she separated any idea that the act was anything intimate.

 

Some targets weren’t young and nice but even those disgusting men that had taken an interest in her mostly because she was young , she could take some satisfaction in knowing that in a few moments they’d be tortured for information or even straight out killed by Team Ro. 

 

This felt nothing like those missions. This time it was real in a way that both scared and thrilled Sakura. There wasn’t anything deceitful about what they were doing. She was simply Sakura. Hiding in the dark with an attractive boy and enjoying his warm kisses.

 

She didn’t know how long they stood against the tree, kissing languorously and unhurriedly. It was only when the festival’s first fireworks exploded the sky in colour that they parted and, even then, it was only so he could rest his forehead against hers.

 

Sakura felt him steeling himself, muscles tensing so he could push himself away from her but she didn’t let him. With the hands that had sneaked themselves around his back, she brought him closer to her. Her left hand slid up his body so she could reach the back of his ponytail and angle his head further away from hers.

 

Shinsei let out a strangled sound that Sakura could feel beneath her lips where they met his throat in open-mouthed kisses. 

 

In the next second, he was pressing her firmly against the tree bark. Between his traditional get-up and hers, it was hard to feel anything, but the sheer warmth and presence of him both sent her senses into overload. 

 

Deft fingers brushed her yukata and haori from her left shoulder so he could return the favour there and Sakura couldn’t hold back the sigh that wanted to escape her lips. That felt nice.

 

“ Shit ,” he hissed against her neck. With what seemed to be incredible reluctance, Shinsei leaned back so he could place a chaste kiss on her lips that felt anything but innocent. “We have to stop.”

 

“Do we?” The words were breathy as they left her mouth and Sakura felt herself flush at hearing the want behind them. 

 

Shinsei groaned and pressed another kiss that felt like punishment.

 

“Is this your first time?” The question was asked gently even as Sakura felt tension tightening all of his body. 

 

It didn’t exactly catch her off guard but it did make her pause slightly. He was looking at her now, eyes dark and hands firm on either side of her jaw. Sakura could only look at him and nod slightly.

 

She hoped he could see in her eyes that despite admitting to her inexperience she was far from innocent and unwilling. Sakura hoped he saw the desire and curiosity she felt. For a second she couldn’t read the look on his face but then he was leaning forwards again to kiss her yet again.

 

This kiss was deeper than any they’d shared before and it only made the fire in her belly burn hotter. His tongue caressed hers like he was trying to memorise her taste before he parted with a slight bite to her bottom lip.

 

“Not here, then.” The words were murmured against her lips so quietly she almost didn’t hear them.

 

Sakura wasn’t too far gone to realise that they couldn’t possibly go through the festival. 

 

“You’re staying at the foreign dignitaries’ housing, right?” She asked, tilting her head further back so she could look at him, his bright blue eyes were almost black.

 

“Yeah, they gave us two suites at the tower.” Shinsei tilted his head in question and Sakura smirked. 

 

“Hold on tight.” Without another word, she tugged him closer and used shunshin to get them to the upper floors of the Hokage Tower. In the next moment,  they were quickly moving through the dark, empty corridors to reach the foreign dignitaries’ housing. She knew they’d be in the best suite and wasn’t disappointed when Shinsei produced the key to the doors from beneath his gi.

 

Sakura didn’t have time to look around because as soon as they were inside, Shinsei’s mouth was back on hers, coaching embarrassing sounds from her throat with his hands and tongue.

 

She felt him moving her but only took notice that they had reached a bed when the back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. He seemed to shift gears when her hands started pushing his gi from his shoulders. With slow, sensual movements he helped her unwind her obi before he harshly pulled his hand away with a hiss.

 

It took a few seconds for Sakura to realise what had happened. She’d forgotten about her hidden knives. 

 

With an unapologetic laugh she grabbed his hand in hers and healed him. He was looking at her with awe clear on his face even in the dark room. Sakura smirked.

 

She removed her hidden weapons with slow, deliberate moves, not letting her gaze drift from his. While she placed them on the bedside table, Shinsei took off his own wakizashi and then they stood facing each other again.

 

With boldness she wasn’t completely feeling, Sakura let her yukata and haori fall to the floor.

 

Shinsei, now only wearing his hakama pants, kissed her hotly. It was an act so raw and with so much intention behind it that it took Sakura’s breath away.

 

When he laid her down in the middle of the bed and pressed his body on top of hers, Sakura started to feel the first tendrils of anxiety. His body between her legs felt wonderful , honestly, and his warm chest against her bare breasts was definitely doing something for her but it was like it hit her just then that this was her first time.

 

She never truly had the time to create any romantic notions about sex. Even though her first years at the Academy were spent in special classes for civilian kids and were not really ‘ninja-heavy’, she was still fairly young when she got to a point where she started going to class with the rest of the clan kids. And that included kunoichi classes.

 

So while her parents tried to give her a proper upbringing as a high member of a merchant clan and to expect a nice husband to come along, the only time Sakura had ever had any romantic plans for herself was with Sasuke. And even then, it wasn’t about sex, it was about being able to be there for the incredibly sad boy.

 

Later on, when they were closer to graduating the Academy and then during their short months as Team 7, her thoughts often took a decidedly more mature turn but everything had been dampened by how much she just wanted to take care of him. She wanted to make him smile.

 

The thought of Sasuke made her pause.

 

Why the fuck was she doing thinking about him, specially such thoughts that only lead to her feeling sad. She was with a nice, hot guy that looked at her and admired her.  

 

Shinsei made her feel wanted and special. He appreciated her strengths, complimented her on her looks and, goddamn it , she deserved it. She couldn’t be with brainless civilians like Ino, but Shinsei was a warrior like her and he understood . 

 

So Sakura breathed out a shaky sigh to dispel her nerves and focused on the boy that was now sucking on her pulse point.

 

“Are you okay?” He murmured against her skin, probably having felt her tense up.

 

“Yeah,” Sakura sighed. 

 

She was. Because she wanted this, and she wanted him. Also because she came to a point in her career that pesky labels like virgin weren’t exactly helpful. She’d rather do this on her terms.

 

Shinsei put a bit of distance between them, just enough so he could look her in the eyes. The black bleeding out on bright blue took Sakura’s breath away.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Sakura smiled at his consideration. Yeah, she’d made a good choice on having Shinsei be her first. With a cheeky grin, she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and brought him closer to her than before.

 

“ Yes ,” she whispered against his lips. 

 

Even though she didn’t feel any inclinations towards backing out then, when he reached for her panties, she paused.

 

She wasn’t exactly nervous , but her heart was still beating quicker than usual. It seemed however thoroughly she had squashed that silly little part of her that was raised on proper manners, it still managed to rear its head from time to time. It was ridiculous and she felt stupid as soon as the thought installed itself in her head so she quickly kissed Shinsei to distract him from her momentary pause.

 

Fuck insecurities. She had made her decision and she was going to make everything during that night about her. 

 

Sakura was expecting a lot more pain than she felt but Shinsei had prepared her well and seemed to know what he was doing even when she floundered. For a second, the pressure was too much and she caught herself thinking: Well, there isn’t much to this, is there? 

 

She didn’t quite know what to do with her hands but just as she was about to overthink their position of grabbing his biceps, Shinsei was suddenly all around her and inside her.

 

Then he changed his angle and— 

 

Oh.

 

Oh. 

 

Okay, yes. She could see why people did that.

 

Sakura left a few hours before the sun began to rise, her features relaxed in a way they hadn’t been in a long time. Things had been a bit awkward at first but she could definitely see herself meeting up with him for as long as he stayed in Konoha. 

 

She had just reached the Senju estate when a stray thought crossed her mind. She suddenly understood her older friends when they came back from missions, met up at the Rusty Kunai and then went to bed almost never alone. It had been a great way to decompress and relax.

 

She was already asleep by the time her head hit her pillow and she didn’t have a single bad dream.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura walked into ANBU headquarters with a lazy smile on her face. 

 

It was roughly fifteen minutes before her workshop was due to start and she wanted those extra minutes to put on her mask. While the whole experience was entirely too nerve-wracking for her to be completely confident, she had to rise up to the occasion. 

 

Objectively speaking, she wasn’t the first young shinobi to be given such a high position inside the ranks but it would still ruffle some feathers. She had to put on her game face.

 

Sakura decided that for this, she would try to be as close to herself as possible while leaving no room for others to question her authority and expertise. She was going to be brutally efficient and to the point while treating everyone like she would an unruly member of the civilian council. Respectful but firm.

 

Even with all of that in mind, she couldn’t help the slightly self-satisfied look on her face. She’d had a great night.

 

No matter how extensive her training routine was, there were still some muscles she had to soothe with chakra while in the shower and she had to admit the slight burn of them had felt marvellous . 

 

Her whole body was pleasantly sated and her mind clear even though she hadn’t gotten much sleep. She felt languorous that morning, despite everything.

 

It was safe to say, Sakura was heavily considering seeking him out again that night.

 

With a quiet sigh, Sakura reeled any wayward thought in and settled for a slightly more professional face. She got to Toshio’s office and flared her chakra before stepping inside.

 

“Yo!” He waved carelessly at her while still keeping his eyes on the pile of paperwork in front of him.

 

“Will you be there?” Sakura didn’t bother with pleasantries.

 

Toshio looked up at her with an amused expression on his bland face.

 

“Will you need me to hold your hand, Wolfie-chan?”

 

Sakura just tilted her head to the side and slightly raised an eyebrow at the man, not indulging his goading. She was satisfied when he seemed to pout for a second and muttered under his breath something that sounded suspiciously like, “So serious all the time…”

 

“I figured it would be best for you to do this on your own,” Toshio said after a beat. And really, he didn’t need to explain anything else for her. He wanted her to be in a position of absolute power when she stood in front of more seasoned shinobi, not to have him hanging over her shoulder like a supervising parent.

 

She was glad they were on the same page.

 

With a perfunctory nod, Sakura turned to leave the room.

 

“I’ll report as soon as it’s over.” She threw one careless wave over her shoulder before the door closed behind her.

 

With determined but near silent steps, Sakura made her way across headquarters towards one of the many empty rooms available. These rooms could be accessed through a corridor on the right side of the lockers but Sakura took the long way through the mess hall. 

 

Heads followed her but she didn’t stop to talk to anyone, only nodding back to the few who acknowledged her. She was still a novelty. A young kunoichi recently made jounin that quickly moved through the ranks to not only be a co-captain to one of the highest profile teams but also a sensei .

 

While the world outside the shadow ranks was pretty black and white in regards to rank, ANBU was different. Outside, if you made it to Jounin it meant you were elite. You passed a few tests then you had the qualifications. ANBU ranks were all about merit. 

 

Sakura still had a lot to prove to her fellow masks. 

 

While she had great accomplishments for her age—and she did , no matter what her self doubt told her sometimes—she really hadn’t worked with many people outside of her teammates. She kept mostly to herself and didn’t really frequent the mess hall all that much compared to the people who lived in ANBU headquarters.  

 

This was an opportunity for her to show them who she was. She had the means to help her fellow shinobi and to put a little bit of herself in the foundation of a program that would help many others in the future. 

 

She loved this feeling.

 

Sakura stepped inside the room at exactly ten o’clock.

 

Not earlier because that could be interpreted as nervousness. Not late because she was already lax enough with the rules around headquarters and she had to show she was respectful even if some of those rules just didn’t apply to her.

 

The room reserved for her wasn’t big but it wasn’t tiny by any means. There was a white board like the one on Team Ro’s office and below it, a chest filled with scrolls Sakura had asked for. 

 

In the middle of the room stood a small round table with no chairs and a large bowl of water on top of it. The fish inside it was swimming in frantic circles, making the water splash slightly. 

 

There were ten operatives standing around the table, talking softly to themselves. All of them wore the full uniform and their masks.

 

Sakura watched, slightly amused, as one by one they noticed her presence. Her head tilting to the side as she felt a slight breeze. Her eyes went to the wall furthest from the entrance and roved over it as she carefully prodded it with her chakra. It seems like they had given her a room with a false wall to work with and behind it stood Toshio, Tsunade, Shizune and… was that Ibiki ? She wasn’t familiar with his chakra enough to confirm.

 

Whatever, she thought, let them watch. 

 

When the workshop had been announced in HQ, the only information given was that Wolf-taichou would be administering lessons on field medical ninjutsu and that everyone who had a high level of chakra control was strongly advised to participate.

 

Whispers of her name had risen amongst the ranks but no one really knew much about her. The people standing in front of her clearly weren’t expecting someone so young and… pink.

 

Inner Sakura snorted in the back of her mind.

 

Sakura held eye contact with everyone for a few beats before raising her chin a bit.

 

“Take off your masks.” Her voice was calm yet firm, the command clear behind the words. Sakura herself had pinned her own mask to her belt so there would be no mistaking who was going to be teaching them.

 

There seemed to be a slight hesitation from a few of her students but she ignored it, merely filling away their faces. There was only one of them that she recognized. Operative Kitsune, the ninja that had been in Kakashi’s squad and had healed Ino on her first mission as a chunin. 

 

“I’m Haruno Sakura.” Inner Sakura wrapped a cloak around her shoulders made of memories of Tsunade’s fierce grins, Tenzou’s calm face, Toshio’s borderline disrespectful cheeriness and Kakashi’s aloofness. “Or Wolf, while inside these walls. I completed my medical training with Tsunade-shishou a while back and, in this workshop, I’ll teach you how to keep your teammates alive.”

 

Sakura picked the bowl of water with just one hand, a small smirk on her lips when she noticed one of the few women raise her eyebrows at her, and put it down on the floor. 

 

“Grab one of those scrolls for me, will you, Kitsune?” Sakura didn’t look at the Hyuga while she crouched to pick the fish from the bowl. 

 

“Hai, Wolf-sensei,” he said and immediately got to work. 

 

Sakura held the fish firmly between her hands as it took its final breaths and Kitsune spread the scroll on top of the table where the bowl had been previously. 

 

Sensei.

 

This was so fucking weird. To have this level of respect shown and this kind of responsibility placed on her shoulders felt so daunting. But at the same time, she remembered the old kunoichi shopkeeper's words about trusting her superiors to know what she was capable of. Unmei-obaasan had been right.

 

She could do this.

 

With steady hands, Sakura placed the recently dead fish on top of the intricate seals marking the scroll and looked at her students.

 

“If this was a normal lesson and you were all aspiring iryo-nin, I would give each of you a fish and have you resuscitate it.” Sakura carefully worked her chakra into the fish’s chakra network to coach it back into motion. “This exercise teaches you how to control your chakra influx to tune it to the same or at least similar wavelengths of your patients’. It helps hone your control and gets you familiarised with changing the chakra intensity while using medical ninjutsu.”

 

Sakura was happy to see they were paying attention to her even if some of them had a bit of a sceptical look on their faces. She put the live fish back into its bowl.

 

“I’m not here to teach you how to become an iryo-nin.” Sakura straightened up and squared her shoulders, letting a bit of danger slip into her tone. “I’m here to teach you how to use iryo-ninjutsu well enough so that when the time comes when you have a teammate bleeding out in front of you, you have the skillset to make sure they don’t come back home inside a body sealing scroll.” 

 

She let her words hang so they could appreciate their meaning. One of the guys who had been hesitant before, a tall man in his twenties, exhaled loudly in something like annoyance. 

 

The woman to his right, the only other woman aside from the one that had raised her eyebrows at Sakura’s show of strength, elbowed him sharply on his ribs.

 

Sakura shifted her eyes towards the disrespectful little man and looked him over, her gaze completely disinterested in him while still cold enough to make him freeze. 

 

Most of them seemed to respect her already and those who weren’t quite there would be soon enough, Inner reminded her. Soon, she would be able to be more like herself, show camaraderie and build rapport. For now, she had to gain their trust and respect. Completely.

 

“The first few months of these workshops will be on the simpler side of things so that the operatives who couldn’t be here can catch up when they come home from their missions.” Sakura gestured to the overflowing chest with her chin. “The scrolls in there have a medical seal to help focus your chakra. Pick one and take them home with you to practice this exercise. Tell everyone interested in this workshop that that chest will always be filled with them. The amount of time and effort you put into it should be the same as the will to ensure your fellow teammates stay alive.”  

 

Sakura felt the corner of her lips pull up into a crooked smirk when she saw how she was making most of them uneasy. Inner had slowly started leaking her killing intent. Not enough to scare them or for them to really notice she was doing it but just enough so that they would feel off-kilter, so that they would heed her words carefully.

 

It was a bit of an underhanded tactic, sure, but she had a lot working against her there. 

 

Despite not looking or even acting like it anymore, she was still a few months short of sixteen and didn’t have half as much experience as anyone in the room. Right now they were wondering if privilege had put her there and she had to squash any kind of thoughts right at the beginning. 

 

When she saw Kitsune swallow dryly, Sakura slowly started to reign it in.

 

“So!” She clasped her hands together, making some of them flinch, and smiled disarmingly at them all. “I want to know how much knowledge each of you has even if it’s as simple as knowing how to make a tourniquet. Since we don’t have many people, we’ll be working almost individually.” Sakura nodded, almost to herself, and called Kitsune back to her.

 

“Taichou…?” He asked her hesitantly as he stepped closer. Sakura ignored him and took a kunai from her pouch.

 

“But before that, a little demonstration on how our lessons will go.” Sakura had barely stopped speaking before she slashed her kunai through the skin of her forearm. Blood immediately gushed out of the deep wound. “Go ahead, Kitsune-san, heal me. Preferably before I bleed out,” she added wryly when the man gaped at her.

 

As he set forward with green chakra covered hands, Sakura turned to the rest of her class and continued explaining.

 

“I’ll inflict upon myself almost everything I’m going to teach you how to fix, this way you get more hands-on experience which is what ultimately counts. You’re not trying to close my tenketsu, Hyuga, chill out on the chakra intensity for a bit.” Sakura spared him a raised eyebrow before turning back to her group. “As you progress, I’ll start pairing you off with more experienced operatives and give you the green light to practice on each other. For now, please do try to keep me from the embarrassment of dying inside HQ.” 

 

Sakura was rewarded with a few slight chuckles even as most of them either gaped at her like she was insane or scary. Maybe both. Oh, how she loved shinobi dark humour.

 

“That was a great job, Kitsune-san!” Sakura smiled warmly at him and watched as a slight flush rose on his cheeks. “Barely even left a scar. Of course, on the field you shouldn’t waste any chakra into making sure your teammate can wear short sleeves in the future, yeah? Just encourage as many white cells to replicate as possible in the shortest amount and with the least chakra expenditure you can perform with.”

 

She pocketed the kunai she’d used on herself and brought that same hand to cover the silvery line Kitsune had left behind. With barely two seconds of her palms softly glowing green, it was gone.

 

“How?” The disrespectful little man from before was now staring at her arm in wonder.

 

Sakura smirked and waited for him to look at her so he could see how cold it was.

 

“My chakra control levels are as high as 99,5%.” Sakura didn’t let any indication that she was bragging show in her voice as she stared calmly at her students. “I don’t waste any chakra.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

SOO! 

 

A lot of things going on in this chapter 'cus we're getting super close to a time skip, yay! Tbh the last couple of chapters and the next one weren't in my original plan/outline for this fic haha But things just kept popping up and suddenly I had this HUGE plot and extremely descriptive chapters so... yep, a lot of things got added that I was NOT expecting. At all. I'm telling you this fic has a mind of its own.

 

I think I already said it before but like... Originally? There were supposed to be just a couple of chapters of the time skip, each chapter covering about two years of Sakura's life and then I was gonna get into the KakaSaku goodness... yeah. That didn't happen. So, after a bit of crying, I sat down and wrote what would happen on each chapter until chapter 40 (roughly). I have it all handwritten in my notebook. Anyway! 

 

I totally forgot to mention in the last chapter's notes that being a sensei is a HUGE thing in Japan. Like, they're the only ones who don't have to bow to the Emperor huge. So in my head it makes a lot of sense that they would get paid more and stuff, especially 'cus in canon, only really good jounin become jounin sensei. It feels like a promotion. Oh if us westerners could learn from that. '.'

 

*cough* 

 

Sakura is no longer a virgin. Yay for her! I hope you guys are satisfied with Shinsei's comeback! This is one of his final appearances though... I hope it was satisfactory hehe ;) Speaking of satisfaction, I just wanted to say that HOLYSHIT it was hard to write that non descriptive sex scene. Like, I didn't want to put too many details bc this is a KakaSaku fic and it felt kinda like cheating for some reason? But I actually suck at _not_ describing things so it was kinda hard to give it meaning while not explaining a lot. GOD I MISS WRITING SMUT. KakaSaku smut. On that note, I'm sorry for taking SO LONG to get to the KakaSaku goodness. Like, I feel y'all, really. I'm as desperate as you guys to get them together already but I want Sakura to have more experience before it comes to that even though she'll be quite young when it happens (late 17/18). I don't mind the age difference and the whole ex-sensei thing as long as there isn't a huge tip in the power balance, you know what I mean? So, yeah, she's gonna have some more experiences before that. As I told some of you guys already, the slow burn is _soo_ slow at this point, it isn't even on yet. 

 

I recommend you guys heading to my one-shot called "Shades of Red" to read some good old fashioned borderline PWP to tide you over. 

 

(yep. here there be shameless self promotion)

 

Also! My baby girl, A, the wonderful beta, writes an AMAZING KakaSaku College AU called  "Running Out of Reasons"and you guys should definitely check that out sometime.

 

Let me know your thoughts on the whole workshop thingie and how this chapter went! I’m dying to know what you think on this chapter hehe

 

Love, J <3

Chapter 26: Teaching and Learning a New Jutsu

Notes:

Hiya, guys! Here have a tiny time-skip!

Enjoy :)

Sakura carefully injected herself with suxamethonium, the same paralyzing toxin she’d used on her jounin exams. The four people around her shifted anxiously so she shot them each a smirk.

 

“Sensei…” Boar, the oldest of her students, spoke up. “Are you sure about this?”

 

Boar was huge, to put it lightly. His biceps were easily bigger than her head and, even though she was on the tall side for a woman, he stood at least two heads taller than her. He’d been an ANBU captain ever since before the Kyuubi’s attack, one of the lucky ones who had been outside the village on a mission during that fateful night.

 

At first, he’d been one of the hardest to win over. 

 

Quite a few of the operatives who came for her first workshop didn’t come back. Four, exactly, almost half of them. But no matter, because in the five months that followed, Sakura had gotten ten new students on top of those original six that’d stayed. 

 

Today, she had a full class and those who’d stuck with her were progressing wonderfully. 

 

Boar’s respect for her now ran deep as did many of the others who she had to convince to see her for who she was. And Sakura was a damn good medic and operative.

 

Words like genius and prodigy were spoken about her around the village but she scoffed at them. They were for people like Sasuke and Kakashi, ninja that were naturally good at pretty much everything they tried. 

 

Sakura had worked her ass off to get to where she was. She had shed blood and sweat and more tears than she cared to admit to get to a point where she could say she was happy about her development. And she wasn’t good at everything; her ninjutsu was sorely lacking, she could admit, even if she more than made up for it in other areas.

 

While teaching wasn’t something she wanted to focus on for the rest of her career, she certainly enjoyed seeing her students progressing. 

 

There were five that became so good at iryo-ninjutsu that Sakura was sure they could find a nice spot as medics if they did a bit of more focused studying. Four of them stood around her to try the extremely difficult technique that was poison extracting.

 

Sakura glanced at Fox where he stood supervising the other students on the more basic techniques. 

 

Hyuga Keiichi had already been very proficient at basic medical ninjutsu when she started the workshops and it didn’t take him long to reach a point where she had little else to teach him. Not if she didn’t want to teach him complicated surgeries, that is.

 

There wasn’t anything else she could teach about field iryo-ninjutsu but it was still nice that he came to most of her workshops either way. He helped her supervise those who had just begun or weren’t really getting the hang of things. Sakura liked to joke that he was her personal assistant.

 

The scowl on his face when she said that was always the highlight of her day.

 

“I sectioned off the area around my arm with chakra so the poison won’t spread everywhere,” Sakura explained yet again to her concerned students. Her eyes flicked towards the false wall and she hid a smile when she realised who was behind it. “While it won’t be as easy in real life, this is as close as we can get without actually hurting me.”

 

While her teaching methods were… unconventional, at best, she could say with utmost certainty that no one was ever in danger while inside her workshops. Everything she taught how to fix, she inflicted on herself. That way, if no one managed to do the jutsu correctly, she could easily heal herself.

 

Yeah, some of the things hurt like a bitch, but most of the time, she numbed the nerves around whatever injuries she caused. Not that she actually told anyone about it, of course. 

 

Let them think I’m scarier than I really am.

 

Now, this lesson would hurt. She’d chosen this specific toxin because it numbed the area it paralyzed but the extraction of poison was an extremely delicate procedure that she was only teaching in this workshop as a curiosity for the more advanced students. And it hurt. Badly.

 

“You already studied up on the theory of it.” Sakura raised an eyebrow at the three men and one woman. “Who wants to go first?”

 

Sakura didn’t let her satisfaction show on her face that Crane was the one who stepped up. She had been one of the original students who’d stuck with her and Sakura had to admit she had a soft spot for the quiet woman. 

 

Sakura watched carefully as Crane emerged her hands on the bucket of previously mixed components and brought a small bubble of it towards her arm. 

 

“Stop,” Sakura interrupted. “Get more.”

 

“Hai, Wolf-sensei,” Crane muttered obediently and did as she was told.

 

She began the procedure with careful focus and seemed to be doing well enough that Sakura could afford distracting her a bit.

 

“On the field, there most likely won’t be any time or a nicely placed laboratory for you to mix up the components,” she explained, voice slightly strained from the pain. “It’s definitely harder, but you can make do with water if you have to. This concoction is made of the most common components that react to the usual poisons and toxins, so it’s easy to spot your target. You just have to pay more careful attention if you don’t have it.”

 

Crane was beginning to sweat through her clothes as Sakura continued her lesson.

 

“The first time I did this procedure was here at Konoha’s General.” Sakura took a deep breath to centre herself. “I had only ever studied it on paper before, never even seen anyone do it. An ANBU team had barely made it through the gates, Tsunade-shishou was busy healing the other team members and Shizune-senpai was halfway into mild to severe chakra depleature.”

 

Sakura took her eyes off Crane’s work and looked at the others. 

 

“I had to take over.” She averted her gaze and forced herself to continue. “The procedure was a success but I was too late. She was the first who died at my hands.”

 

Crane was shaking so much, Sakura almost stopped her. She waited a few seconds to see if she’d manage to pull it together but her student’s grunt made her act, just as she was beginning to lose her hold on the poison she’d managed to collect. 

 

Sakura gasped at the pain and closed her free hand around one of Crane’s wrists. With a steadying breath, she directed her own chakra through Crane’s pathways and gently guided her.

 

“Close your eyes,” she murmured to the woman. “Block everything else off. You have to be able to feel the molecules and chakra working inside the body. There will come a time when you do it so well that it will feel like you’re actually seeing everything.”

 

The four students gasped in unison when they pulled away the liquid with the toxin inside.

 

Sakura smiled slightly as the others clapped Crane on her back excitedly. With a slight chuckle, she put her own hand to her forearm.

 

“You did well, Crane, only missed a little. It’s fine, though, I can use it to teach the next phase.” Sakura concentrated hard on her own chakra and looked inward. She continued her lesson. “If you practice enough, you won’t even need water to guide you. Especially if you were the one infected.”

 

Sakura brought her hand back, the remains of the toxin with it. Crane, Boar and Turtle gaped at her while Dugong whispered a tiny incredulous, “ No fucking way.”

 

“Know your body. Know your chakra. It will be the difference between life or death one day.” Sakura stopped to let the seriousness of the situation sink in before continuing. “This toxin, like most used during combat, is extremely fast acting. Crane had difficulty extracting this last bit because it had already permeated the muscles cells. If you know how your body and chakra work, you can easily pinpoint when and where it’s not working as it should.” 

 

It took a few seconds for Sakura to realise that the silence wasn’t only on the part of the room the little advanced group was standing. Everyone had stopped to watch as soon as she had started speaking and were now staring unabashedly at her.

 

Keiichi was the first who started clapping.

 

Soon, everyone was clapping and hooting, some exclaiming loudly how cool she was.

 

“Alright, alright.” Sakura raised her voice over the noise but just enough to be heard. It didn’t take long for everyone to be quiet. She shook her head slightly, a small smile on her lips. “Since you’re all paying attention let me continue with the story I was telling.” She looked calmly at them, willing them to understand the importance of her next few sentences.

 

“As a shinobi, we’re used to dealing with death. It’s expected. We slash a kunai on some poor bastard’s throat and we know what will come of it. As a medic, things are different.” Sakura forced herself to keep her gaze locked with her students’. “Fighting against death is harder than using it as a tool. I’m sure every one of you has already lost someone on the field but you should know that that will not prepare you for how it’s going to be when a comrade dies at your hand while you’re fighting death with everything you’ve got.

 

There will come a time when you will have all the knowledge and abilities to save your teammate when they get a sword through their gut, but not enough chakra to do so. You will have to make some hard choices and no amount of experience you’ve had as a shinobi will prepare you for it.” Sakura smiled sadly at them. “Hopefully, these workshops will also be the reason you’ll be able to avoid most of your teammate’s deaths in the future.”

 

Sakura expelled a harsh breath and clapped her hands, making some of them flinch.

 

“Alright, enough slacking off. Get back to work!” She shooed Keiichi playfully before turning back to her advanced students. “Who’s next?

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura was leaving HQ through one of the entrances that led to the training grounds, Boar next to her talking animatedly about his recent research on layered genjutsu. He was a genjutsu type like her and had recently discovered how he had improved since taking up iryo-ninjutsu.

 

It was funny to see how alike they were in some ways while in others they couldn’t be more different.

 

He was all brute force and careful chakra control, like her, but while he was a captain of a melee team, Sakura was on a team that specialised in assassination. Full frontal attack versus subterfuge. While she had been chosen for Team 7, a melee team like Boar’s, she had honed her abilities in Team Ro. Sakura wondered briefly how she was going to fit back into Team 7 when Naruto came back. 

 

If Kakashi managed back then, then so can I, Inner reminded her and Sakura smiled slightly at her assuredness.

 

They had just walked through the hidden passageway when Boar stopped right in his tracks, halting mid-speech.

 

“Hatake.” Boar’s voice was a strange mix of reluctant respect with dislike and Sakura couldn’t help the tiny amused smile that came to her lips.

 

Kakashi was leaning against a tree directly in front of the hidden entrance, one hand in his pocket and the other holding Icha Icha loosely. Sakura looked closer. It was Paradise. He was feeling nostalgic.

 

His eye slid lazily towards the other man and Sakura watched as Boar’s dislike was reflected there, even though he looked bored as always to the casual observer. She had seen that look on him quite a few times when Sasuke was being particularly disrespectful. 

 

“Kitagawa,” Kakashi acknowledged him with perhaps a smidge less of respect as was earned. But then again, despite being younger, Kakashi’s name was feared throughout the five nations. Sakura doubted many even knew who Boar was, let alone that his name was Kitagawa Satoru. Kakashi turned to look at her then, his expression softening into what she could only assume was a smile. “Yo, Sakura-chan.”

 

Sakura- chan. 

 

She didn’t know if he had used it because he was feeling nostalgic of their brief months as Team 7 or if he was making a dig at Boar that while he considered her to be someone worthy of being called sensei, Kakashi saw her as his underling. She slightly narrowed her eyes at him but let it go.

 

“Hey, senpai.” She tilted her head to the side, a silent question. When he didn’t offer anything else, Sakura turned to Boar. He had been gearing up to say goodbye before they came out the passageway so she simply smiled at him. “Good job today, Boar. I’ll see you around HQ, yeah?”

 

Boar quickly said goodbye before shunshining away and Sakura raised an eyebrow at how fast he’d left.

 

“He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” she commented, stepping closer to stand beneath the shade with Kakashi. “He respects you, kinda, but mostly he’s scared of you. And kinda hates himself, and you, because of it.”

 

Kakashi huffed a quiet laugh that she only heard because she was standing close to him and shrugged his hunched shoulders a bit.

 

“That’s… actually a pretty good deduction,” he granted.

 

“So,” Sakura started when she realised he was getting lost in his thoughts, “did you like the lesson?”

 

Kakashi raised his eyebrow at her, Icha Icha still held between them like a shield. There was no denying that he had watched the workshop from behind the false wall with the Commander even if he didn’t stay until the end.

 

“I was hiding my chakra.” She was glad he didn’t bother to pretend.

 

“Clearly not well enough.” Sakura raised her scarred eyebrow, gently amused by him.

 

“Clearly.” Kakashi smiled at her, his eye tracing the scar bisecting her eyebrow. Sakura wondered if he knew that it had come from her first mission as a chunin, that the only reason she was still alive was because of him and his team.

 

“You can come inside the next time you’re around for one of those, you know.” Sakura grinned at him. “I’m sure my students won’t mind the famous Copy Ninja being there and you have more than enough control to try some new tricks I can teach.”

 

“I don’t think I’ll be around long enough to learn the basics, Sakura- sensei ,” Kakashi said.

 

Sakura huffed a surprised laugh at his teasing. Someone was in a good mood. It was odd for Kakashi to be this light. She tried to respect his wishes to keep this interaction on the happy side and chose not to comment on his resignation at spending so little time inside the village that he wouldn't be able to participate in her workshops.

 

“It’s Wolf-sensei, actually.” She mockingly raised her nose at him, following along. “Or Wolf-taichou, if you prefer.”

 

“That reminds me.” Kakashi put his book back into the pouch on his back before placing his hand on her shoulder. “Congratulations, Sakura.” 

 

Sakura couldn’t contain her smile if she tried. Despite having come to terms with Kakashi’s role in her life as an absent teacher, it was still so good to get praise from a man that she admired so much.

 

“Thank you, senpai.”

 

“Come with me,” Kakashi said, starting to move through the woods. 

 

Sakura followed him, startled by the sudden change. It seemed like he had finally come to a decision, she just wasn’t sure what it was about.

 

“Where are we going?” She asked after following his lead and jumping to a tree branch. They moved from tree to tree for a while before he answered.

 

“I still owe you your graduation present.” Kakashi didn’t turn to look at her so Sakura sped up to run by his side.

 

“You know,” Sakura turned her head to shoot him a slight glare, “being five months late is ridiculous, even for you.”

 

“Maa, Sakura-chan, sorry, sorry.” He scratched the back of his head in a show of sheepishness but Sakura wasn’t fooled. “My last mission took longer than planned.”

 

At that, Sakura narrowed her eyes. This was the second time he insinuated he either didn’t spend time at the village or didn’t expect to be around much. Even if she hadn’t been worried before, she’d definitely be now.

 

As it was, Sakura had been worried sick ever since she looked at his file and noticed he was being pushed to his limits, quite often not even respecting the three days off rule for every mission longer than three weeks outside the village. With a quick hand, she grabbed his wrist and immediately sent some chakra into his system. 

 

Kakashi stopped abruptly but to his credit didn’t snatch his hand away. They stood still on top of a large branch as Sakura examined him.

 

His chakra reserves weren’t as depleted as she’d been expecting so he’d probably gotten home last night at the latest. He’d definitely had some sleep. There was some bruising on his ribs that made Sakura frown.

 

“You didn’t check-in at the hospital, you idiot,” Sakura chided with her eyes closed. She didn’t bother listening to his outlandish excuses as she healed the bruised ribs and a poorly healed gash on his upper chest. It was harder to do this through his wrist but she figured he wouldn’t appreciate her touching him anywhere else.

 

“Wait, Sakura.” Kakashi gently brushed her hand away from his wrist but it was okay because she was already finished. “You’re going to need your chakra.” 

 

Sakura scoffed.

 

“I barely used any for that.” She waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. “Where are we going that I’m going to need to use my chakra, anyway? And where are we?”

 

“We’re at the Nara forest,” Kakashi said simply and gestured with his chin for her to follow him. Sakura rolled her eyes at him.

 

“I do know the layout of my own village, senpai,” she said dryly.

 

Kakashi chuckled when they jumped down to the forest floor. She could see a house in the distance, an old wooden porch peeking through the treeline.

 

“This used to be my father’s house,” Kakashi replied, his voice quiet.

 

Sakura faltered in her next step while Kakashi trudged on the overgrown path ahead. She was frozen to the spot watching his broad shoulders—so hunched, like he was always carrying such heavy weight all the time—as he reached the steps, paused for a beat and then continued on his way up.

 

When he reached the door, he turned his head to look at her.

 

“You can stay there if you want,” he offered and that quickly snapped her out of it. She hurried up towards him.

 

In the years after she had gone looking for Kakashi’s file, she had asked her shishou about his early life and his father. In his file, he was listed as an orphan during his Academy year and she had often wondered what had happened to the rest of the Hatake clan. Shishou never talked long about them, even though she had admitted once that Hatake Sakumo had been one of her closest friends back in the day. She had, however, said that Kakashi’s mother had died before he completed two years and that his father was already gone by the time he graduated. At age five.

 

Sakura knew that when he joined ANBU, his address on his file was the ANBU living quarters like many of the faction’s orphans and that later on he moved to his apartment above Shizune’s, in a building that mostly housed jounin. She didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d come back to his childhood house but she couldn’t imagine it’d be easy for him to revisit those memories.

 

She had so many questions. When had he moved out? Did he have to look after himself after his father died or had someone taken him in like Tsunade had taken care of her? 

 

Sakura made sure to step as close to him as she dared, not quite touching him but offering what kind of support she could. Kakashi expertly disabled several seals and traps before pushing the door open.

 

The backdoor led them to a nice, traditional kitchen. Kakashi moved quickly to open the many windows to let the musty air out but it wasn’t too terrible inside. He’d definitely been there in the last year or so. Or at least someone had.

 

Kakashi placed a scroll on top of the kitchen table.

 

“Could you unseal this for me?” He didn’t wait for a reply before moving towards the corridor she imagined led to the rooms. “I’ll be right back.”

 

Sakura, more confused than ever but too curious to do anything other than what she was told, unsealed the scroll.

 

She blinked at the contents of it when the smoke cleared. Then she tilted her head to the side, as if trying to figure a puzzle out.

 

Kakashi’s jounin graduation present to her was… an old jounin sweater?

 

Sakura was still silently blinking at it when Kakashi came back with more fabric on his hands.

 

“Your present is…” she trailed off uncertainly before completing, “old clothes?”

 

“No, I—” Kakashi cleared his throat. “I’m going about this the wrong way. This is your graduation gift.”

 

He took out another scroll, this one from his back pouch. It was moderate in size but Sakura quickly recognized it as another sealing scroll.

 

“This better not be more old laundry…” Sakura muttered, teasing and threatening him at the same time but Kakashi didn’t answer.

 

When the smoke cleared out, a large dark green scroll stood on top of the kitchen table. Suddenly feeling the nervous energy Kakashi was only halfway successful at hiding, Sakura hesitated for a beat before spreading it open.

 

It covered the extension of the six-seats table and the pages were old and frayed at the edges. At the very top, written in blood-red, Hatake no Okami.

 

Hatake Wolves.

 

“I was very young when my mother died,” Kakashi started speaking, his speech hesitant. Sakura was almost startled enough by the private topic he was broaching to look at him, but somehow she knew that if she did, he would stop. So she focused on tracing the names on the scroll with her eyes. “I’ve always hero-worshipped her, so as soon as I had enough chakra, I signed the contract with her pack.

 

The wolf pack is… was my father’s summons. They used to stay in this realm and hunt in these woods when in contact with him but since his death, they went back to Oyamatsumi Mountain and the scroll has been collecting dust for a long time now, so when I heard the name they gave you at ANBU… It feels right to give this to you.” 

 

Sakura finally looked at him then. Kakashi was pointedly avoiding eye contact with her and was simply staring out one of the windows. Sakura had never seen him look so uncertain.

 

“You want me to have… your family’s summons?” Sakura asked, probably sounding as uncertain as he looked.

 

“You don’t have to accept it, you can—” he cleared his throat “—you can say no and I’ll go buy you some new senbon.”

 

Kakashi touched the scroll then, as if he was going to close it, and Sakura felt a sudden bout of protectiveness towards it. She put her own hand on top of it so he couldn’t lift it. This time, she sought out his eyes determinedly.

 

“What if you have kids?” She questioned but Kakashi was already shaking his head before she was even done.

 

“Sakura, the Hatake line is a dying one. I’m all there’s left, and I definitely won’t be continuing it.” He didn’t look saddened by it. Not even resigned. He just looked like he had decided that for himself a long time ago. Sakura felt sad on his behalf. “Besides… The wolves never felt like mine. They were always my father’s and… I think he would have wanted you to have it.” Then, impossibly lower he said, “He would have liked you.”   

 

Sakura couldn’t remember the last time she had wanted to cry this much. She was overwhelmed and flattered and goddamn it she was so happy to have known this impossibly sad man. She couldn’t say no if she wanted, even if the idea of carrying another clan’s legacy was daunting.

 

Sakura snorted.

 

“What?” Kakashi asked, looking slightly taken aback.

 

“It’s just that you’re the second person to ask me to carry on their extremely important clan’s legacy.” Sakura gave him a huge, genuine smile and hoped he didn’t focus on the tears in her eyes. “I’m just glad to have you both in my life.”

 

“Tsunade-sama?” Kakashi asked. He hadn’t relaxed much but there was a smile crinkling the corner of his eye. 

 

“I’m her sole heir now. The council is not happy a civilian is going to inherit the Senju legacy. I just hope I don’t inherit her debts as well…” Sakura muttered, mostly joking. Then she peered curiously back at the scroll. “So, how does this work?”

 

“You sign your name with blood, perform the kuchiyose jutsu and wait to see if whoever comes accepts you as part of the pack.” Sakura swallowed dryly. That wasn’t really reassuring. “The contract depends on this scroll and the integrity of the signature so the more blood you use, the stronger the characters will be and you won’t risk losing the contract if some of it flakes away.”

 

“Do you have a brush and a small pot?” Sakura asked and Kakashi nodded.

 

“I’ll go get it before we leave.” He left her at the table to rummage through the kitchen cabinets where he found a tiny pot and set it near the scroll. Sakura busied herself with closing the summoning contract inside the sealing scroll while Kakashi made his way towards what looked to be a study.

 

“We’re going back to the woods?” She raised her voice slightly so it carried towards the other room.

 

Kakashi came back with a calligraphy brush, his face paler than usual. Sakura frowned at him but chose not to say anything when he averted his gaze. He picked both jounin uniforms up and started to leave. Sakura fumbled with the scroll and pot and went after him.

 

“Hatake wolves are very territorial. When my grandfather settled here with my father just before the Second War, there was a pact made with the Nara’s so the wolves could hunt in the woods if only they didn’t hurt the deer.” Kakashi explained as they locked up and made their way back down the overgrown path. “My father’s pack was the first generation to be born here in Konoha. Since they have a longer lifespan than humans, you’ll probably have most of my father’s old pack with you.” 

 

Sakura had so many questions, she didn’t even know where to begin. 

 

“And the uniforms?” She settled for when they came to a clearing. It was really small, the treetops almost meeting but it was enough that some sunlight came through. Kakashi sat down in the middle of it and Sakura copied him.

 

“The pack is very territorial and they had never signed a contract with anyone that wasn’t from the Hatake clan or from a Hatake’s pack.” Kakashi smiled at her and she knew it was a teasing one from the gleam in his eye.

 

It didn’t take anything else for Sakura to understand. While Sakura was pretty sure Kakashi considered her pack at this point—the man was giving her his dead father’s summons, nothing screamed pack just like that—she didn’t exactly smell like him. Sakura forced a blush down with her chakra.

 

“You want me to smell like you…” she pursed her lips. “And your dad.”

 

“Yes,” Kakashi said then he paused, his body freezing. “I know it sounds a bit creepy when you say it like that…”

 

“Yep.” Sakura nodded. “It’s very creepy.” She snickered. “C’mon, hand over your old, dog smelling shirt already.”

 

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at her and for a second he looked like he would refuse, just for the principle of it, but then he gave a put upon look and handed her the clothes. Sakura, with an amused smile on her face, took off the outer part of her ANBU uniform and shrugged on the two jounin shirts. The extra layers warmed her up almost immediately and warded off the cool Autumn breeze.  

 

The large shirts fell to her mid-thigh and awkwardly bundled over the wolf mask she had taken to clipping to her belt whenever teaching and her usual hip pouches. Sakura was surprised by her need to run a hand over her plaited hair, it was a weird time to feel self-conscious about her appearance. She cocked her head to the side instead.

 

“Will this be enough?” She asked.

 

Kakashi retrieved his well-loved copy of Paradise from his pocket and leaned both his elbows on his knees, crossing his legs. 

 

“It’s best if you work up a sweat so that our scents are properly mixed.” He shrugged. “It’s good that you put my father’s shirt on top, though. It doesn’t have much of his smell now, but they’ll recognise it anyway.”

 

Sakura immediately dropped to the floor to perform a gruelling set of push-ups. It would take a long time for her to get properly sweaty by it but by circling her chakra faster through her pathways and artificially stimulating vasodilation, she could speed up the process. 

 

“Hotaka should still be the alpha,” Kakashi said, completely surprising her. Sakura figured he’d go back to reading his book until she was ready. “He was born just a few years before my father signed the contract with the pack and he can use lightning jutsu. He and his mate used to babysit me quite often when I was a child.”

 

Sakura had so many things to ask about that last tidbit of information, but somehow it felt wrong to voice any of those questions. Kakashi was an extremely private person and opening up this part of his life for her couldn’t possibly be easy for him. She knew she wouldn’t want to talk about her parents if he suddenly grew an inquisitive trait and asked. 

 

“I didn’t know summons could do nature transformation,” she said instead, the beginnings of perspiration gathering at her temples.

 

“Some summons probably can’t,” Kakashi replied. “The Hatake Wolves, though, are said to be on par with the legendary Toads, Snakes and Slugs.”

 

Sakura paused mid push-up to stare at him. She had forgotten that Hatake Sakumo was not only friends with them but also said to be on the Sannin level, back in the day. When he didn’t offer anything else, she went back to her exercises, brow furrowed. Just how big a gift was this? She didn’t know Kakashi had ever considered her enough to give her something like this. It felt like something he’d give Sasuke, like the Chidori, or even Naruto, but never her.

 

“You’re flushed already.” Kakashi broke her train of thought. She didn’t detect any accusation on his voice but her previous thoughts made her narrow her eyes at the grass.

 

She changed to one-handed push-ups and quickened her pace. Lee would be proud.

 

“Iryo-ninja,” she said more curtly than was probably needed, then felt bad about it and asked, “Is this enough?”

 

Kakashi paused to sniff the air and Sakura felt her cheeks burn hotter. He was clearly analysing her scent but, oh man, was he smelling her sweat? What if he could tell from that little sniff more than she wanted for him to know? She had spent the night at headquarters with an ANBU operative from another team yesterday and while she showered this morning in her own bathroom, what if he could tell ?

 

But Kakashi didn’t say anything, merely put Icha Icha back in his back pouch. Sakura stopped her movements and dropped in front of him, copying his crossed legs.

 

“This should be good enough.” He nodded to himself before unsealing the summoning scroll and handing her the small pot. “I think me being here will make more of a difference than how you smell. But it still feels close enough to the scent someone from my pack should have.” 

 

Sakura listened nervously to him as she opened the palm of her right hand with a chakra scalpel. She let the blood drop into the pot until it was filled, then used just enough chakra to clot the wound but not completely close it. 

 

She wanted it to scar.

 

Being a medic-nin meant that she had almost not a single scratch on her body. The scar on her eyebrow served as a reminder of a changing point in her life and she felt like this would be the same. 

 

With precise strokes, Sakura signed her name next to a crookedly penned Hatake Sakumo. She didn’t exactly feel any different, but if she focused enough, she could feel the chakra trapped inside the scroll. It felt powerful.

 

“Good.” Kakashi nodded again, a smile slightly crinkling the skin of his eye. “Gather about half your reserves. The seals are Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey and Ram. You’ll probably only need them for the first few times you do it, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon.”

 

Sakura practised the seals without infusing chakra, mirroring Kakashi’s movements. It was fairly simple, as far as jutsu went. C-Rank at best, if judged by the seal numbers. Still, she knew the tricky part would be her chakra reserves.

 

She had worked them up until they were above average but she still wasn’t on par with the likes of Tsunade and probably would never be. It was her greatest deficiency and the reason she steered well clear of nature transformation despite having two chakra affinities. Sakura wondered just how humiliating it would be if she only managed to summon a small cub.

 

Inner scowled in the back of her mind and forced those insecurities back. They had no place here in this person she was becoming.

 

Sakura formed a fist so her wound would open again before moving through the seals. She smacked her hand on the forest floor.

 

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!” 

Notes:

*mic drop*

Lol, I'm silly. I hope you liked Kakashi's gift to Sakura hehehe I did A LOT of research on wolves and japanese culture and DUDES. DUDES. There are so many coincidences, I can't wait to post the next chapter so we can talk about it xD Next chapter will follow up where this one left off and the one after that (chapter 28) will do the same and then we have some more time-skips to do! I'll keep reminding you of them and by the time we're done with them, I'll do a bit of a timeline sketch so you guys can know what happens when and keep better track of it, lol. ;)

By the way, I just have to express how incredibly resentful I am of past!J who decided it was a grand idea to name the chapters of this fic because hey! It's gonna be about 20 chapters long, right? I can totally do that.... I absolutely SUCK at naming things. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Can we all just collectively pretend I never named any chapter so I can do the sane thing and just write down the chapter's number? Jk... or am I?

About the scroll and kuchiyose jutsu like hahaha I think it's so funny that in the anime they have Kakashi carrying around his summoning scroll as if that was a thing?? Search for 'kakahi likes to twirl stuff' on google, it's a tumblr post by kokoro4kakashi and it'll make you laugh. Anyway, it's ridiculous. Ya don't need your scroll to summon your summons.

Let me know what you guys think of this chapter!! A huge shotout to A, my baby, my Beta, who really is a huuuge help <3 Ily. Also, you guys are so so wonderful it makes me wanna cry! Let's have some convos and debates in the comment section, y'all!!! Also, come say hi to me on Tumblr, will ya? I'm justjstuff over there! ;)

P.S.: This is really a ps that has absolutely nothing to do with the story you can just skip ahead if you'd like. I just have this question that I want to know you guys' opinion and here is where I have the most engagement (as opposed to Tumblr). What do you guys think about associating your name with fanfiction? Like, be it as a reader or a writer, do you feel ashamed, embarrassed about it? Cause I used to a lot and it makes no sense??? And I've been meaning to start a YT channel and I think I'm kinda holding back on it because I don't know what my fandom friends will think about seeing that part of me IRL and also what my RL friends will think about my fandom life? I dunno, it's stupid really, but if you guys have any opinions on this, I'd like to hear them! <3

Chapter 27: Hatake no Okami

Notes:

Hiya, all! Thank you so so much for commenting last chapter, you guys are just the best, you have no idea the amount of love I have for you. Really, thanks for all the support. I haven't answered everyone yet cause I'm super super insanely busy rn and I wanted to use what time I had to actually write more, but I promise I will, 'kay?

Enjoy this one :)

Sakura held her breath as a large puff of smoke covered most of the clearing. For a second, the immensity of it made her heart skip a beat and she unconsciously stepped closer to Kakashi until the back of her shoulder met his chest.

 

Low growling came from the chakra smoke before it slowly began to clear out. 

 

In front of them stood a pack of nine wolves, different in sizes and colour. Some of them were crouched low, hackles raised and warning in their growls. Some stood eerily quiet, while two of them stood magnanimously tall and still.

 

All of them, however, were slowly beginning to look surprised.

 

“Sengen-sama…” the tiniest of the wolves whispered, her voice awed and childish. She was white and dainty, mostly resembling a medium sized dog, and she was standing on top of the largest wolf’s head.

 

The dark grey giant-wolf, standing much taller than Kakashi even while seated, immediately bowed his head to the ground at the surprised murmur of the tiny wolf.

 

“Sakuya-hime,” his deep voice resounded through the clearing.

 

Almost as one the pack began to get agitated and Sakura was feeling dread pull in her stomach. What the fuck was happening?

 

The two wolves that had stood still stepped forwards, breaking formation with the pack and making the others stop and observe. One of them was completely white, its right eye foggy with blindness from three long scars that scratched from its ear to its muzzle, pulling at the skin there to end at its fang. Its other eye was so blue it looked like it was shining with chakra. It stood as high as Kakashi’s waist.

 

The other wolf was smaller but not by much, its pelt tanned with reddish streaks and its eyes a golden yellow. It stopped while the other wolf continued slowly making its way towards Sakura and Kakashi.

 

Sakura released the breath she’d been holding shakily and tensed further when Kakashi slightly nudged her forward.

 

The wolf smelled the air.

 

“You’re not Sakuya-hime,” he said simply, his voice deep and low. 

 

Sakura’s mind blanked. She knew she should say something but absolutely nothing came out of her mouth for the next beat. This was not what she was expecting from the Hatake Wolves.

 

“I’m Hotaka, I’m the alpha of this pack,” he offered while Sakura gaped at him like an idiot, his one good eye not leaving her. “Are you worthy?” His voice had deepened at that question, Sakura’s gut tightened in response. This was important.

 

Was she worthy?

 

She was a shinobi. A kunoichi. She’d fought for her village, killed for it. When it came to Konoha, she was worthy of being a jounin, an ANBU captain and teacher. She was capable and loyal.

 

But as a person. Was she worthy? 

 

With all the blood on her hands, all of the lies she had told targets, the different cloaks and masks Inner offered her to wear… Was she worthy? She truly didn’t know. Sakura had always done what she thought was right. She was fighting against rules and tradition to ensure her village would be kinder in the future, better for the people who would carry on their Will of Fire. In the end, she was trying her best and that had to count for something.

 

She answered.

 

“I’m Sakura.” 

 

The wolf smiled.

 

The reddish tanned wolf took half a step forward then and cocked its head to the side.

 

“Pup…?” She asked uncertainly, looking straight at Kakashi. Sakura was immediately put at ease by her melodic voice. It sounded regal to her ears, but something about it was inherently soothing.

 

 “Yo,” Kakashi said, “Kimi-obasan. Long time no see.” 

 

Hotaka’s eye turned to him then and widened in recognition before he narrowed it at the man standing slightly behind her.

 

“Sakura isn’t a Hatake, Kakashi.” There was a certain type of growl to his words but Sakura didn’t feel threatened anymore. It felt like she had passed some kind of test. “Have you given our contract away?”

 

“The Hatake line will die with me, Taka-ojisan,” Kakashi replied, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “I chose Sakura to carry on their Will of Fire. She’s worthy of it, as you’ve seen for yourself.”

 

And then the focus was completely back on her. Sakura blushed slightly at the intensity behind their gazes. She had absolutely no idea how to go on so she took a deep calming breath and looked at Hotaka.

 

“Why would they call me Sengen-sama?” Sakura asked. “Sakuya-hime?”

 

Kimi chuckled.

 

“It’s easy to forget how the shinobi of the Leaf don’t hold the same beliefs we do.” She looked at Sakura and her yellow eyes were warm even if her voice was cool. “Konohana-Sakuya-hime, or Sengen-sama, is the goddess daughter of Oyamatsumi, the kami-sama of the mountain that we protect.”

 

Konohana-Sakuya-hime. Princess of the blossoming cherry tree. She could maybe see why they would mistake Sakura for her. And how fitting, really, that they served a goddess whose name resembled her so strongly. This felt like nothing else but Fate. 

 

With her resolve strengthened, Sakura bowed in a way she hadn’t done since Tsunade had prohibited her from doing so, almost three years ago. 

 

“Yoroshiku-onegaishimasu.”

 

Please take care of me.

 

Hotaka stepped closer to her until she could feel his breath ruffling the hair on top of her braid. Sakura held the bow so tensely she was afraid her spine would just break in half until she felt something warm and wet on the side of her face.

 

He had licked her.

 

Sakura gasped as Hotaka laughed boisterously, a few of the others behind him following while Kimi rolled her pretty eyes.

 

“Don’t be so uptight, pup,” he said before giving a signal to the others with a tilt of his head. “Everyone, come meet Sakura-hime, our new master.” 

 

“I-I’m not!” Sakura gasped as all nine wolves came forward to lick whatever body parts they could and sniff her in some very uncomfortable places. “I’m not a princess!” she sputtered.

 

Two identical wolves chattered over each other's voices as they introduced themselves as Hideki and Misaki. They were about a head taller than Hotaka, standing on equal height to Kakashi’s shoulder and Sakura’s eyebrows. Their tanned back had black hair darkening their ears but their paws, belly and muzzle were white. As soon as they thoroughly inspected Sakura, they moved on to Kakashi, nipping at his clothes until he conceded and went to play with them.

 

“How did you two manage to get even more hyper?” She heard him mutter over the sound of another wolf sniffing at her face.

 

She stood stock still as the giant grey-black wolf familiarised himself with her, the small white one not leaving its head to do the same while she yipped excitedly.

 

“I’m Chika!” She exclaimed. “It’s so nice to meet you, Sakura-hime! Your hair is just the prettiest! Oh! This is Tamo-chan!

 

“Sakura-hime, it’s an honour,” the giant wolf said while stepping back. “I’m Tamotsu.”

 

“Right, move, move, let me smell her already, goddamn it.” An old man’s voice came from one of the smaller wolves. His pelt was almost black apart from his muzzle which was completely white. The most interesting thing about him, however, was that there were bloodied bandages covering both of his eyes. It was frayed at the edges and torn in some places like he’d been wearing it for decades. He stepped closer to her with a slight limp.

 

“Anno…” Sakura tried to smile at him but immediately felt like smacking her hand on her forehead from how stupid that was. She averted her eyes to where Kakashi was getting refamiliarised with the wolves that had already greeted her while he sniffed at her.

 

“Hmhm! You smell like the forest, good, none of that fruity bullshit.” He licked her on her wrist which was the only thing he could reach as he only came up to her hips. “Sweat, new, reeks of chakra. Good strong chakra, pure, precise. Sakumo-chan’s shirt, for sure. Also the pup’s. What the fuck are ye doing with them old shirts, girlie? Sakura-hime, I meant.” 

 

“I actually prefer girlie than Sakura-hime, to be honest.” Sakura huffed a small laugh. The wolf snorted and kept talking, almost to himself. 

 

“Mated yesterday… No pups in her belly. Yet. An orange ‘fer food. Blood. Poison?” Sakura coughed loudly and hoped to everything she knew that Kakashi was being kept too busy so that he didn’t hear what the old wolf was saying. “Call me Kaoru. Why were you poisoned inside the village walls?”

 

“I wasn’t,” Sakura rushed to say, glad that he had no interest in further commenting on her sex life. “I teach iryo-ninjutsu for ANBU operatives. Today I was showing them how to extract poison and used a paralysing toxin on myself to demonstrate.” 

 

“A healer!” Chika exclaimed. She was jumping around Tamotsu’s head while he laid down on the floor between her and Kakashi, who was busy playing with Hideki and Misaki.

 

“I’m Yukari, Sakura-hime. Did you say paralysing toxin?” Another wolf had stepped forward. She was smaller than Kaoru even but not quite as small as Chika, her voice was so quiet Sakura almost hadn’t heard her. She was completely black with many silvery scars marking her body where fur didn’t quite grow back. Her fangs were too big for her mouth, making her look like she was always frothing and snarling but there was no hostility in her almost neon green eyes.

 

“Yes,” Sakura answered. “ Suxamethonium. Can you smell it?”

 

“No,” the she-wolf answered, slight amusement to her words. “My nose isn’t quite as formidable as Kaoru-sama’s. I can, however, replicate it in my bite if you feed it to me sometimes. It’s always good to increase my arsenal.”

 

“Oh,” Sakura blinked at her. “That’s really useful. I have full access to the laboratories at Konoha General. I’ll see what I can get you.” 

 

Sakura was sure the gnarled wolf smiled at her before trotting off. She huffed a laugh when she noticed Hideki—or was it Misaki? She couldn’t tell yet—finally get the upper hand on Kakashi and knock him to the ground. He didn’t stay there long, merely grappled with the wolf playfully before flipping over and landing on a crouch that looked almost animal-like.  

 

“Sakura-hime,” Hotaka approached her again. “This is my mate, Kimi.” The regal wolf from before bowed her head in greeting. “And this is our youngest son, Kaede.”

 

The last wolf stepped forward between his parents. While his mother only held reddish accents to her pelt, his was completely red. On some parts it was blood red, darkening so much around his ears, tails and paws that it almost faded into black. The other parts of him were a red so vibrant, it almost looked like fire. He looked like the Kyuubi in wolf form.

 

He was taller than his dad but still looked young. While she didn’t know much about wolves, she figured he’d grow to be about Hideki and Misaki’s height by how his paws looked to be slightly big for his body. His eyes were the same chakra-infused blue of his father’s but there were streaks of gold in them that made him look almost ethereal. 

 

He watched her quietly as Hotaka continued speaking.

 

“He’s only five months old but he’s the only one from our litter to express the mark of a leader, and at such young age too.” Hotaka seemed like a goofy, proud father then and it was endearing as much as it was jarring what with his fearsome appearance. “He’ll lead this pack soon, and you are his as much as he is yours. Just like I was with Sakumo.”

 

Those words hit Sakura hard, taking her breath away with them. 

 

Kaede stepped forward, his eyes not leaving Sakura’s for a moment as he stood before her. She could see the same swirl of emotions she was feeling reflected in them and in that moment, she knew what to do.

 

Sakura lowered her forehead to bump into his and they both exhaled. Hotaka was right. She was his and he was hers. At that moment, it felt like their very soul was connected.

 

Holy shit, Inner echoed the only thought going through her mind and Kaede instantly raised alarmed eyes at her.

 

“Sakura-hime, was that you?” His voice was just as deep as a boy with her age’s would be but surprise had painted a growly quality to it. 

 

Sakura’s eyes widened. Could he hear her? 

 

The slight nod he gave her made her gasp. Instantly, she tried to convey that he shouldn’t talk about Inner, shouldn’t voice something that she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with. Ever. She was quite happy coexisting with Inner without asking too many questions.

 

“You two will be able to hear each other thoughts at will,” Kimi explained. “It’s something the whole pack can do, but since your bond is the closest, it will come more naturally than with the rest of the pack.” 

 

Kaede buttheaded her on the stomach gently and Sakura couldn’t stop a smile from stretching her lips. She placed both hands on his head and scratched him behind his ears. Kaede huffed at her and it was like she could feel how happy that made him. Sakura giggled.

 

“Since you’re not a Hatake, we’re going to have a lot to teach you, Sakura-hime.” Hotaka sat next to her feet, his eye trained on where Kakashi was entertaining Hideki and Misaki. “I assume the pup told you we used to live in these woods?”

 

“He did,” Sakura replied, her eyes on Kakashi. He looked so carefree. “If you want to continue living here, I’m sure the deal with the Nara is still up. If not, I’ll talk to them.”

 

“No,” Hotaka said simply. “We have grown accustomed to living in Oyamatsumi Mountain. We’ll stay with you for training and come whenever you activate the seal, for whatever reason you call upon us. But we’ll live in the mountains.” 

 

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him. That was oddly assertive for someone that had called her master, but since she wasn’t actually looking to be anyone’s master, she let it slide. They must have their reasons.

 

Kimi huffed when Misaki—Hideki?—bit too roughly on Kakashi’s sleeve, almost tearing into it. She made her way over to them in a quick trot and growled something Sakura couldn’t hear, then the two identical wolves moved to play by themselves, tails between their legs. 

 

Sakura watched with a smile as Kakashi petted Kimi on the head before he sat down. Kimi then sat next to him and snuggled her head against his chest. 

 

“He called you uncle and aunt,” Sakura said, a question to her tone as Kakashi kept talking quietly to Kimi. 

 

“Ah, yes,” Hotaka laughed. “Sakumo used to leave us with the pup whenever he had to go on a mission. His first word was Taka! Poor Sakumo tried to pretend he’d said papa but we all knew.” He laughed again, nostalgia written all over his tone of voice. “We raised the boy together and when he signed the contract with his mother’s dogs, we helped him train them.”  

 

So Kakashi’s pack used to be his mother’s summons. She didn’t know why that information stuck with her. She couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for Kakashi’s dad to have raised him by himself, enough so that he’d asked his pack for help. Sakura frowned and didn’t say anything else.

 

“Don’t feel sad, Hime-chan.” Hotaka gave her a lopsided wolf smile and in Sakura’s mind, that was how Hatake Sakumo looked. “How about we talk about your training now?” 

 

“What kind of training?” Sakura asked, glad for the change of topic. Kaede huffed excitedly.

 

“We’re going to teach you how to work with the pack!” He licked her on the face, making Sakura scrunch up her nose, and then walked a few circles around her and Hotaka.

 

“A Hatake has enhanced senses, they’re born with them. Smell is the most prominent one, we use it for almost everything.” Hotaka gestured with his head at her. “I bet you can train your nose to get better with time, Hime-chan. Medic-nin are crafty like that.”

 

Sakura tilted her head to the side. Technically, she enhanced her muscles with chakra so she could be faster and stronger, all ninja did. Could she do the same with finer things like her eyesight and smell? With enough control… Maybe. 

 

“So, you’ll train me to have a better sense of smell?” Sakura asked.

 

“Briefly.” Hotaka’s ears perked when he heard Kimi laugh in the distance but he didn’t turn away from Sakura. “What’s more important now is that you learn how to run with the pack. We have to learn each other's strengths and weaknesses and how we operate in battle. I’ll teach you the commands this pack is used to, the ones Sakumo created, and if you want to change anything, we’ll learn together.”

 

“I’ll be your primary wolf, Hime-sama!” Kaede huffed, his rear wiggling a bit in his excitement. “We’ll both be training together to become Alphas!”

 

Sakura couldn’t help the small smile that came to her lips, his enthusiasm was so contagious. It made sense that they would be trained together like that since Kaede would take over the pack before Sakura was dead… if everything turned out okay.

 

“Yo!” Hotaka set on a slight trot towards where Kakashi and Kimi were talking quietly. “Are you staying with us for training, pup?”

 

Sakura followed behind him with Kaede running excited circles around her. Kakashi glanced at her briefly before focusing on Hotaka.

 

“I have a mission tonight, actually,” he replied. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay before leaving. Sorry I can’t stay longer, I’m already half an hour late for debriefing.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes. It was nice to see some things never changed. 

 

“ANBU?” She asked, without really meaning to. She wanted to know, of course, but she really didn’t know where they stood. Were they close enough to have chats about missions? She worried about him—she couldn’t really not worry—but despite their history, they didn’t have a lot of interaction.

 

He gave you his family's ancestral summoning scrolls, Inner reminded her on the back of her mind.

 

Well, yeah. Maybe they were past things like skirting around social norms.

 

“Yes,” Kakashi replied before she could torture herself any longer with trying to figure out what she could and couldn’t do.

 

Sakura frowned. ANBU missions rarely started at night unless they were assassinations somewhere inside Fire Country or emergency situations. Since he wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get up, she guessed the former. 

 

“Don’t worry too much.” Kakashi was looking at her with his eye creased in a hidden smile. “Tenzo is coming with me on this one. It’s a simple hit-skip.”

 

“I didn’t know Tenzo-taichou was leaving Konoha today!” Sakura fought the urge to cross her arms. Stupid ninja that insisted on keeping people at arm’s length sometimes. “We have a team training session tomorrow!”

 

“I’m sure we’ll make it back before sunrise, Sakura,” Kakashi assured her.

 

Sakura scoffed.

 

“Knowing you, some S-Rank will drop by before you can finish the mission and you’ll both need to be rescued.” Sakura joked, making Hotaka and Kimi laugh. Kimi got up from her perch on Kakashi’s lap and stood next to Hotaka. Kakashi chuckled lightly.

 

“Who will sign the contract with you?” He asked and before he was even done speaking, Kaede was already jumping from side to side.

 

“I will!” He quickly went to stand in front of the large scroll next to Kakashi and bit his right paw until it bled. Being extremely careful about it, Kaede pressed his large paw beside her name. It was done.

 

There was a rush of chakra through the clearing and as one, the wolves howled. Sakura got the ridiculous feeling deep in her belly that if she opened her mouth, she’d start howling too but she brushed it away while Inner laughed at her.

 

Kakashi carefully rolled up the scroll and sealed it inside the smaller one.

 

“I can take this to your house if you want,” he offered while getting up.

 

“Oh, no,” Sakura smiled at him. “It’s okay, I don’t want to make you even more late.”

 

“I don’t mind.” Kakashi crinkled his eye and Sakura felt instantly annoyed that he would just keep people waiting like that. Many times that had been her on the other side. But, oh well, he was doing her a favour.

 

“Go on then, pup,” she said.

 

Kakashi pocketed the scroll and gave them a friendly eye crinkle.

 

“I’ll be going then.” He formed a sign. “Ja ne.”

 

And shunshined away with a puff of smoke. Sakura coughed slightly and waved her hands to disperse some of the chakra-heavy smoke. 

 

“Bastard,” she said grudgingly. “Didn’t even stay long enough so I could thank him.”

 

Hotaka huffed.

 

“The pup was always a no nonsense child.” He looked at Sakura and shot her a wolf-smile. “Used to make grown shinobi cry.” 

 

Sakura couldn’t picture it, but the thought still made her laugh slightly.

 

“Let’s move on to your training, Sakura-hime,” Kimi interrupted, her cool eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you ready?”

 

“I’m—what?!” Sakura didn’t get to finish her sentence before Kimi was lounging at her, a snarl on her mouth. Sakura dodged, almost tripping over Kaede in the process. 

 

“Not fair!” Kaede protested, pulling on her pant leg with his teeth as they both dodged his mother’s attack again. “You didn’t say go!” 

 

Hotaka interrupted Kimi’s next attempt, coming to stand between the three of them. He stood impossibly tall even when he wasn’t the biggest of the pack. The others had slowly come to stand behind Kimi, their hackles raised, Hideki was even growling. Sakura felt her heart speed up.

 

“It’s the two of you against us. If you’re still standing by sundown, you win. If you’re not…” Hotaka’s one blue eye, filled with chakra, bore into Sakura’s and she fought a shiver. “We eat you.”

 

Sakura gaped at him. He couldn’t be serious. They were just having a cute moment! Why the fuck would he… he wouldn’t! Would he? 

 

Sakura-hime, Kaede spoke inside her head, when they give the signal, you run as fast as you can towards the riverside. Don’t hesitate.

 

Sakura took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Inner wrapped her in the cloak and mask used for battle and helped centre her mind. She had to go all out. Sakura closed her eyes and when they opened again, she let her Killing Intent out.

 

Chika immediately whimpered from her place on Tamotsu’s head. Hideki growled louder as Misaki scratched the ground with her paws. Something flashed on Hotaka’s eyes and the others gave her fierce wolf-smiles… or maybe they were snarling at her, she couldn’t tell.

 

“Go!”

 

Sakura didn’t waste any time before doing as Kaede told her. 

 

She had long ago stopped wearing Lee’s weights to train but she had gotten to a point where they weren’t needed anymore. She could keep up with Lee now, even though she had never managed to go faster than him. 

 

Sakura had developed her speed by training alone and then worked to get the precise amount of chakra she’d need for going faster without running out of chakra.  By circling it faster through her pathways, she needed only to add the slightest amount of it to her legs to make her too fast to be even seen. 

 

The only problem was that her eyes couldn’t quite keep up with her speed. So while she used this technique often to escape or during short bouts in battle, it wasn’t something she relied on. 

 

What Hotaka said… Maybe I can enhance my eyes with chakra… 

 

Kaede’s warning growl made her snap out of it. 

 

Sakura had been hurtling through the trees at top speed, using her chakra to guide her while mostly keeping her eyes shut to avoid getting sick. It took her a moment to realise Kaede was running beside her.

 

He must be insanely fast.

 

Sakura barely dodged a stray bird. Kaede’s laugh was so tiny she figured she heard it just inside her head. They weren’t that far away from the river now.

 

I’m the fastest of the pack, remember? You’re really fast too, it’s not common for a human to be able to keep up with me, Kaede said, the smallest of traces of gloating in his voice, Your idea to train your eyes might be a good one. I’ll work with you in the future! Right now, you need to get to the river, the water will help us mask our scents a bit but Kaoru-sama will catch up to us even when we cross so we’re going to have to have a game plan for when they do.

 

Sakura thought over many scenarios while they hurtled closer to the river. Kaede always at her right.

 

Kage-bunshin, she thought, if I give it my own clothes, that might buy us some time. Do you think they’d split up?

 

If they do, my dad will lead a group and Kaoru-sama the other, Kaede answered.

 

With a plan beginning to form, Sakura created a clone with the smallest amount of chakra she could spare and then took all of her extra shirts to exchange with it. It would have to be enough. When they reached the river, Sakura immediately dunked beneath the surface while her clone crossed it over the water. When they reached the other side, Kaede and Sakura, both dripping wet, went left while the clone went right.

 

Her clone was placing exploding tags as she went, creating tiny diversions and traps. Genjutsu wouldn’t help her because the wolves would be able to see through it, so she focused on trying to lead them as far away as possible. 

 

Kaede was talking nonstop inside her head as they ran, slightly slower now that they were trying to keep from being noticed. He went over everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, trying to give her an idea of what they were going to be dealing with. Sakura gave him a brief overview of her own skills in return.

 

Hotaka was the strategist, he used lightning based chakra and while he couldn’t keep up with Kaede in speed, he was still very fast. Kimi was his second in command, and she preferred fire based chakra attacks. Hotaka’s vision was obviously impaired and his nose wasn’t the best amongst the pack while Kimi had an old wound on her back.

 

Tamotsu was the slowest but he could eat her whole. Basically.

 

Chika was an expert in covert ops because she could pass as a stray dog and was very good with genjutsu. She almost never left Tamotsu’s head.

 

Kaoru was blind but his nose was the absolute best. He wouldn’t be exactly fooled by their diversion technique, the only reason Kaede thought it would work was because Hotaka was thorough and wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Kaoru was the slowest both because of his stature and the never completely healed wound on his leg.

 

Hideki and Misaki were twins, and they worked better together. Their combo attacks were completely melee focused, but incapacitate one and the other ceased to be an issue. 

 

Yukari’s bite was poisonous and, if she wanted to fight for real, she could even create a poisonous mist. Her very flesh was poisonous, so Kaede wouldn’t be able to go against her, but her stamina wasn’t the best, he figured Sakura could outrun her and knock her out before she became a problem.

 

Sakura dodged just before Hideki and Misaki reached her, two blurs as they attacked in a formation similar to Kiba and Akamaru’s dual beast technique. The sound of snarling was overwhelming in the clearing and Sakura felt her own Killing Intent leak heavier in response.

 

Hideki and Misaki were both engaging her as Kaoru and Yukari kept Kaede busy. It was a smart strategy since Kaede couldn’t really fight Yukari. Sakura had to trade opponents with him. 

 

The next time Hideki lunged for her, Sakura stepped forward and grabbed him by the sides of his neck. Using her chakra enhanced strength, Sakura turned on the spot and threw him at Kaoru. The two wolves stumbled on the forest floor and Sakura used that moment to engage Yukari herself. 

 

As she’d predicted, Misaki followed her brother into battle. 

 

“Yukari-san, I’m sorry,” Sakura told the black wolf. Yukari paused in confusion before yelping as Sakura knocked her on the back of her head. She had moved too fast for the wolf to react. 

 

One down… seven more to go.

 

Sakura checked that Kaede was holding his own against the twins and was impressed to see he was still standing. She moved quicker than ever to knock Kaoru on his head too, careful to not unnecessarily hurt the old wolf. Even if they did say they would eat her if she lost.

 

She didn’t want to kill any of them.

 

Sakura hurled herself without a care into the fray, kicking and punching with slightly chakra infused punches at the twins while keeping her back to Kaede. She didn’t want to kill them with a punch but she felt their bones breaking beneath her hands. 

 

Kaede clamped his jaw on Misaki’s hind leg and Hideki immediately threw himself at the younger wolf. Only Sakura was much faster. Before he could make any contact, Sakura met him with a kick that sent him hurtling through a few trees before falling to the floor. He didn’t get up.

 

Misaki’s whines and yelps were interrupted by Sakura’s fist coming on top of her head.  

 

Kaede let her go when Misaki fell to the floor and turned to look at Sakura, blood dripping from between his teeth. His mouth was still poised in a snarl and the small growl coming from him made something tighten on Sakura’s stomach. For a second there, the bloodlust coming from the wolf cub and the delighted shine to his gold streaked eyes made her want to growl.

 

“We make a wonderful team, Sakura-hime.”

 

Sakura laughed instead.

 

“We’re not done yet, kiddo.” Sakura smirked at him and was rewarded with a deep growl. “Let’s hunt some wolves.”

 

Kaede was leading them towards the scent of the pack but it wasn’t really necessary since there were many explosions coming from where her clone had led the rest of them. Sakura started formulating another plan.

 

What’s your chakra affinity?

 

Lightning and fire, Kaede answered.

 

Sakura almost lost her footing. It was extremely rare to have two chakra affinities and her partner had lightning and fire while she had earth and water. Between the two of them, they had almost all five of them. Not that would make much of a difference now since she had largely ignored her chakra affinities while training.

 

At first, she just didn’t have the chakra reserves to safely use ninjutsu in battle and later when she did, she had already developed enough skills to put her in jounin level without messing with nature chakra. Her interests had gone the complete opposite direction while training with Tsunade and then in ANBU but now… maybe she could rethink that.

 

You’re going to have to fight your dad, I suck against lightning techniques, she told Kaede.

 

He huffed a small laugh from her right.

 

I can’t take him and anyone else, you’ll be on your own against the others… And I won’t last long.

 

Sakura deliberated. Could she take on the others? Chika wouldn’t know she was a genjutsu type so she might lead with a technique that Sakura could use to her advantage but the others… She would have to end Tamotsu first, a chakra pumped fist to his hind legs before he could eat her whole.

 

Kimi was the unknown variable. 

 

A bad back didn’t say much about her skill in combat and she must be Hotaka’s second in command for a reason, right? 

 

Before Sakura could consider any further plan of actions, they entered the clearing that her clone was fighting against the whole pack. Hotaka had his teeth sunk on one leg while Kimi held the other and Tamotsu…

 

Tamotsu came up from behind and cut her in half with a single bite.

 

Sakura gasped as the clone’s experiences came back to her and from the gruesome scene in front of her. The clone’s legs disappeared with a pop and the wolves turned to look at her and Kaede.

 

Stay back!

 

Sakura jumped down on the clearing and let her leg drop to the floor filled with chakra. The wolves dispersed, their eyes widened in surprise as they jumped away from the crater on the ground and the cherry blossoms scattered around the clearing. Kaede immediately engaged his father and Sakura turned towards Tamotsu.

 

Before she could move much, she felt a lightweight chakra settle on her senses, slithering over the forest floor so thinly, she couldn’t have felt it if she wasn’t expecting it. Sakura was impressed. This level of finesse for a genjutsu was… extraordinary. There weren’t any hallucinations but her senses were just slightly skewed to the left. 

 

The genjutsu was carefully crafted so that she would think her target was about five centimetres to the left while it was directly in front of her. 

 

It was genius. The same rules applied to when Tsunade had taught her how to disguise her chakra to fool the elite. If the difference was too big, it would be noticeable. But changing something just slightly… Something as stupid as a rock on the ground could be a death sentence.

 

Sakura purposefully tripped on her way to Tamotsu and Kimi immediately stepped up, her reddish fur barely a streak as she moved. 

 

“ Onibi no Okami!” Kimi growled.

 

Sakura had been ready to stop a direct hit from her, but then about ten small balls of fire surrounded her. With not enough time to redirect herself, Sakura coated her skin with chakra so that the burns wouldn’t be too extensive. 

 

The fire orbs were about thirty centimetres at best but as soon as they surrounded and touched her, the pain was almost enough to make Sakura blackout. Even with the extra layer of chakra protecting her.

 

It didn’t burn like normal fire. It consumed her and overwhelmed her senses and it took Sakura a while to realise they were sucking her dry of chakra. 

 

A bit like the kikaichu bugs, they were eating her alive. 

 

Sakura couldn’t contain a strangled yell. Her throat hurt as she forced her eyes to open and her body to stay upright. Panting with effort, Sakura fell to one knee and forced a thicker layer of chakra to protect her.

 

It wasn’t working like it did with the Aburame. For some reason, the little balls of hell were consuming her chakra with increasing speed and efficiency. Sakura felt tears forming in her eyes as she choked on a sob. It fucking hurt. 

 

“Sakura-hime!” Kaede yelled from across the clearing. 

 

He was fighting one on one with his father and she could see Tamotsu approaching him. Kimi stood before her, eyes as cold as ever, completely unmoved. 

 

“Pay attention to your own fight!” Hotaka snapped, his lips forming a snarl. “ Raiju!” 

 

What little breath was still in Sakura’s lungs escaped in a gasp as a gigantic wolf appeared between Hotaka and Kaede. It was made of pure lightning and it stood even taller than Tamotsu. The air around them was heavy with electricity. 

 

Sakura clumsily dodged Kimi’s attack, using her tanto to parry the wolf’s claws. Against all possibilities, Kaede was fighting back against the god-like lightning wolf. He was using a smaller version of lightning made wolves, and three of them took on the Raiju’s attacks. When one was disposed of, Kaede created more.

 

Sakura could barely think straight. 

 

It had been such a long time since she felt that kind of desperation. Kimi was mostly toying with her at this point, her attacks merely illustrating her superiority as Sakura stumbled on her own feet. Sakura’s chakra levels were getting dangerously low, and the sheer pain behind the fireballs' attacks was enough to make her vision blur. 

 

It was with a sudden moment of clarity that Sakura realised she wasn’t going to win this fight.

 

She could see Tamotsu closing in behind Kaede as the young wolf fought with everything he had against his father’s attack. What the giant wolf had done with her clone was still fresh in her mind and a bout of panic made her centre herself.

 

She didn’t want to die in that clearing. She didn’t want to fucking lose, goddamn it, but most of all, she didn’t want Kaede to be hurt because of her. 

 

“Kaede!” Her desperate scream echoed around the clearing, ringing higher than the lightning of the Raiju, higher than the sound of Kimi’s claws digging in her back as she moved.

 

With a burst of chakra, Sakura ran faster than ever, barely making it across to where Kaede was standing with his back to Tamotsu. Sakura threw her body with everything she had right into Tamotsu’s bite. Her arms weren’t big enough to find purchase around his neck to throw him off, but she managed to push him away so that his teeth weren’t ripping through her shoulder.

 

Sakura fell to the forest floor, clothes in tatters and blood dripping from… everywhere. She didn’t have a lot of chakra left but what was still there was subconsciously moving towards the worst of her injuries to staunch the blood flow. 

 

“Tamotsu! What the fuck, you weren’t supposed to kill the fucking girl!” 

 

Sakura registered the discussion going on around her in the back of her mind. Really, it had been a bit stupid of her to take Hotaka’s warning so seriously. The dude had practically raised Kakashi, the same Kakashi who had shown her a vision of her crush dying on a test when she was twelve. Limits were something to be laughed at for them.

 

She couldn’t really focus on what was happening around her, though, because every ounce of her energy was going into healing herself. It took her way longer than usual, but she closed the wounds well enough so that they wouldn’t open easily again.

 

“H-How?” Kimi asked, slowly breaking through Sakura’s foggy head. The others were whining softly, forming a protective circle around her. Kaede was anxiously nudging her shoulder and licking the side of her neck while Tamotsu’s gigantic muzzle supported her body where she had sprawled belly down.

 

“I’ve never seen a medic ninja work like that,” Hotaka wondered.

 

“I was trained by Senju Tsunade, she’s the best in the continent. This is actually a pretty shoddy job I did, she’d probably hit me over the head for it,” she confessed to them, slightly petting the fur on Tamotsu’s cheek. 

 

“Ah, we’ve met Tsunade-hime,” Kimi said, laughter in her voice. Sakura managed a tired one and rested further into Tamotsu.

 

While she rested her eyes, the others arrived at the clearing and soft conversation broke out as Sakura continued to lean on Tamotsu with Kaede’s body warming her side. 

 

She must have dozed off because when she opened her eyes again, there was a fire and the others were roasting something over it. 

 

“Eat this, pup,” Kimi’s soothing voice reached her ears and Sakura blinked slowly at the reddish wolf. She was holding a charred bunny between her jaws. 

 

It was kind of gross and definitely over the point of acceptably overdone but Sakura didn’t hesitate in scarfing it down. Around her, the wolves chewed on different types of carcasses. The smell of blood was heavy in the evening air but Sakura somehow relished in it.

 

She was alive. She had a pack. She had stood until sundown. Ish.

 

“Kimi-san,” Sakura said, sometime after she had filled her belly. She was leaning backwards on Tamotsu’s head now, the giant having refused to leave her side, and Kaede’s head rested on her hip as they all prepared to sleep. “Could you tell me about Sakuya-hime?”

 

“Of course, Sakura-hime. ” Sakura was surprised she even had the strength to blush at the teasing remark. She was ridiculously happy that the pack had chosen to sleep with her in the woods after Hotaka had so vehemently disagreed with moving back there. “Sengen-sama was chosen by the god Ninigi-no-Mikoto over her older sister Iwagawa-hime and that is why humans are said to have such short lifespans, like the sakura blossom. On the day after her marriage—”

 

Sakura couldn’t hear much of anything, already far away. She fell asleep with the stars shining down on her, surrounded by warmth and pack and she dreamt of a girl who was fiercely loyal and fearless, a girl that was both a good judge of character and a healer. A girl whose name meant something so similar to hers. A girl who was a protector.

Notes:

OKAY, OKAY, I HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY. I'll say basically nothing important but it's gonna be gigantic, so you can totally skip this and go straight to leave me a comment about what you thought of this one, okay?

So, I was online doing some research on wolves and japanese lore and shit and then I read some samurai tales talking about how wolves were the fiercest of beasts, silent killers (literally what they said was that a wolf could hide if there was just a single reed, lol) and I immediately thought "holy shit, that fits perfectly with the abilities I had Sakura develop here, yay!" BUT THEN, not only that but wolves aren't unjust killers, they're supposed to be the greatest judges of character. Many legends portray wolves killing super bad guys while guiding the nice people who get lost home.

Then, I did a bit of connecting the wolves to the Hatake and figured out they totally already fit because while ancient tales have a bit of a hard time discerning wolves from foxes (like this is a huge parentheses but legend says that wolves protect rice fields but also that the deity that protects rice fields takes the form of foxes, so farmers all over japan seem to think that foxes and wolves are seasonal permutations of each other. During harvest time, the foxes protect the rice fields then during winter they ascend the mountains as wolves, the deity that protects the moutnains). Anyway, all of that to say that wolves protects fields which is the literal translation to Hatake. Also, Kakashi means scarecrow and Sakumo is adaptation of a word that means crop. Sooo, I went with that vibe while naming Hotaka which means tall grain. Lol.

Moving on. I thought to myself, how do I name the place where they're gonna live? I say fuck it to that notion that only slugs, snakes and toads are legendary animals and have special places like okay so maybe not everybody can be a sage and have a super special bond to their summons and have their summons live in cute places but that's just 'cause either people weren't strong enough to be worthy or smth, you know? Anyway, I thought, yes, the wolves need somewhere to stay. A mountain. Should I look for mountain gods? There should be tons. AND. YOU GUYS. OKAY, SO. I found this dude named Oyamatsumi (there are like several different types of way I've seen people write the dude's name but I chose this one) and he's the mountain god and super powerful and whatnot. Wikipedia says that he's Amaterasu and Susanoo's older brother and that he used to be called Watashi-no-Okami (Okami can mean wolf but if you separate the particles Oo= big, great and Kami = god. I know.) Then, Amaterasu's descendant Ninigi-no-Mikoto gets the opportunity to choose to marry one of Oyamatsumi's daughters Iwanaga-hime (rock princess, kinda. She ugly according to the myth) and... KO-NO-HANA-SAKUYA-HIME.

WHICH MEANS PRINCESS OF THE BLOSSOMING CHERRY TREE (roughly, japanese is hard).

So Amaterasu's descendant (which I think Kishimoto was going for Sasuke? I dunno, reading the myths a lot of the people in Naruto were named after these deities in the myths...) ofc chooses to marry Sakuya-hime, cause she pretty. But because he chose pretty over durable (her sister) humans were doomed to have short lives like the cherry blossoms. Btw, this chick Sakuya is the goddess of Mt. Fuji. Anyway, they get married and like a day later she's already preggo. So the dude accuses her of sleeping with another god and this lady just FREAKS OUT and says: "Oh yah? You think I fuck someone else? Bitch, I'm loyal. Imma set this doorless cabin on fire and if me and my unborn children (they were triplets) come out fine, then they're your children." And she did. She set the cabin on fire and proved her innocence.

Okay, crazy historical fic aside, this Sakuya-hime also called Sengen-sama by some (don't ask me why? Like, it was just there and I couldn't find it anywhere), turns out she's considered a protector, a great judge of character and. A HEALER. I SHIT YOU NOT. It's like the Japanese told myths thousands of years ago just so it could all fit perfectly into DoF.

So anyway, that's the crazy story and I'm almost out of characters lol. I'm probably gonna come in the next chapter saying a bunch of other things I /should/ have said in this AN pertaining to the actual chapter haha Oh yeah, I chose the names for the wolves because of this. Check it out and please leave a comment? Like, I think after I spent countless hours doing this, it'll take like a second to give me a sentence on what you think :) Love you all.

Hotaka: tall grain
Kimi: noble (cause I wanted to show how noble the wolves are lol, I'm obvi)
Kaede: maple (cause he's red)
Tamotsu: protector, keeper
Chika: scatter flowers
Misaki: beautiful blossom
Hideki: excellent timber trees
Yukari: beautiful pear tree
Kaoru: fragrance

Chapter 28: The Life of a Konoha Shinobi

Notes:

Hi, everyone :)

This chapter starts off right after the last one when Sakura fell asleep with the pack around her. It feels a bit too filler-ish to me but I wanted a bit of a change of pace before things start picking up again and we dive into the hugeass time skips. I also wanted to bring some characters back into scene hehe

Enjoy!

Sakura woke up with a headache and with fur inside her mouth. It was barely dawn but Hideki and Misaki were already quietly playing, their snickering heard from across the clearing. Sakura stretched, pinching some of Tamotsu’s fur and kicking Kaede accidentally in the process.

 

“Good! You’re awake,” Hotaka called out while he made his way to where Sakura was sitting up and rubbing her hands against her face. “The pup just came back to the village through the eastern barrier. The pack was thinking of going over there to say hello before heading out.” 

 

Sakura grumbled and nodded her head at the wolf, barely awake. 

 

The pack was annoyingly chipper at such an early time of the day but Kaede kept to her left, quietly telling her through her mind the silent signals the pack was passing. It was weirdly easy to move with them. She fit well in their middle, taking point with Hotaka to her right and Kaede to her left.

 

Kakashi and Tenzo were moving towards the entrance to headquarters that was designed as a rock when they reached them. Tenzo turned towards them with horrified eyes before he seemed to recognise her and Kakashi merely waved.

 

The twins seemed to be too tired to engage him and Kimi was the only one that went up to him to lick at his glove covered hands. It was the first time Sakura realised Kakashi was wearing the ANBU uniform. 

 

He looked taller and more imposing for some reason and it took Sakura a while to figure out why. He wasn’t slouching. His posture was lazy as ever but his spine was straight with tension like he was expecting to be attacked even while inside the village. Sakura could definitely relate.

 

“Your wolves are insane, Hatake.” Sakura glared at him even as her lips flirted with a smile. She kneeled before each of the wolves and took care of their injuries while Tenzo spluttered in the background. 

 

“They’re your wolves now, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said over his partner’s voice. Usually that would come with a fake smile and overly bright tone, but that day Sakura was seeing a different Kakashi. His voice was light enough but there was something about it that made Sakura’s spine stiffen in response, his face—already without the porcelain mask just like Tenzo’s but still with its extra cloth protection—held tension that made her pause.

 

Hotaka bumped his head against his middle and Sakura watched as Kakashi seemed to relax a bit, some of the tension in his posture bleeding out. 

 

“Did everything go okay with your mission?” She asked them both but looking only at Tenzo now. Her taichou smiled at her.

 

“I think our night went better than yours, Sakura.” He looked a little worried, his eyebrow crinkling in the middle as he took on the state of her ruined ANBU undershirt. “It looks like you were mauled by a bear… No offence.”

 

Sakura snorted.

 

“Not a bear, no,” she said with a cheery smile, “Tamotsu.” 

 

She pointed with a hand towards the giant wolf. Tamotsu whimpered high on his throat, his head bowing in anxiety and Sakura tried to soothe him. She tried to project her thoughts towards him, how it was okay, she was okay, don’t worry. With steady hands, she smoothed the fur on his neck.  

 

“Alright,” Hotaka said, “We just came to say goodbye. I hope we see each other soon, pup.” He bit the black material of Kakashi’s pants in a bit of teasing reproach. 

 

Sakura vowed that she would make that happen.

 

“We’ll see, Taka-ojisan.” Kakashi gave him one of his non committal replies, making Kimi huff.

 

“Sakura-hime,” Hotaka bumped his head on her shoulder and Sakura smoothed her hand over his scarred forehead without thought. “Call us again soon so we can train more, okay? We still have a lot to teach you.”

 

“Hai, hai,” She waved a hand to the others and smiled. “Let’s hope I don’t almost die again, ne?”

 

There was a chorus of  “See you son, Sakura-hime!” while Sakura rested her head against Kaede’s in goodbye. The young wolf gave her a cheeky lick on the cheek before giving her a cheeky wolf-smile. As one, the pack disappeared in a puff of smoke. 

 

Sakura coughed at the chakra-heavy smoke and waved a hand in front of her to dissipate some of it. Goddamn it, she was tired.

 

“Taichou…” She looked at Tenzo then, a mocking pout on her lips. “Are you sure you wanna have the training session today?”

 

Tenzo laughed and shook his head but Sakura could see the slightest of blushes on his cheeks. 

 

“Noon, taichou, ” he answered. “Sharp.” 

 

Sakura sighed in defeat, preparing to go now. They probably were in as much a hurry to get their reports in and catch some shuteye as she was to get into her bed.

 

“Sakura-hime?” Tenzo asked, surprising her. “Do you think that’s going to catch?” He turned towards Kakashi.

 

“Well, she is the Senju heir,” Kakashi answered with a shrug. “Seems fitting, doesn’t it? We should start the rumour.”

 

Sakura gaped at them both, surprised to see them teasing like that but also a bit appalled at the notion that people would start going around calling her Sakura-hime .

 

“Don’t you dare,” she threatened after coming back to herself, eyes narrowing at the two men-children in front of her. Completely giving up on Kakashi, she turned to Tenzo. “Tenzo-taichou, be reasonable.” 

 

“Don’t worry, Sakura.” Tenzo laughed and Sakura narrowed her eyes at him a moment longer before joining in. She figured he wouldn’t say a thing. Kakashi though… 

 

“Well, I’m going to head home to gather some strength for this unavoidable training session,” Sakura said, giving Tenzo a pointed look in hope that he would take the hint. He didn’t.

 

They gave each other their final goodbyes and Sakura shunshined away leaving a cloud of cherry blossoms behind. When she got to her house, she didn’t even bother looking for Tsunade, just stripped off all her gear and passed out belly-down on her newly bought queen-sized bed.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

The training session was gruelling as usual, but Tenzo took pity on them and ended it just a few short hours later. Sakura plopped tiredly on the ground and waited until Genma sat down on the base of a tree before half crawling half dragging herself towards him. 

 

He laughed at her antics and offered her the water bottle he’d been drinking from. Sakura groaned her thanks and gulped down its contents in seconds before resting her head on Genma’s lap. 

 

The others had come to sit around them and were drinking from their own bottles of water laughing at Sakura’s misery. Genma started carting his fingers through the messy flyaways from her braid and Sakura closed her eyes, completely content.

 

“Did you know Sakura’s summons call her Sakura-hime?” Tenzo asked when Sakura was about to fall asleep. She gasped and opened her eyes to shoot him a look.

 

“Traitor!” She couldn’t believe she’d been so wrong in her assessment of his personality to assume he wouldn’t say anything to their friends.

 

“Since when do you have summons?” Yugao asked, an amused smile on her pretty face.

 

“Since yesterday,” Sakura grumbled but it was mostly for show.

 

“She has giant wolves,” Tenzo said. “Giant Hatake wolves.” 

 

“No way,” Genma looked at her, shock clear on his face. “He gave you his father’s pack?”

 

Sakura shrugged, but she knew full well how momentous it was. She wondered how well Team Ro knew Kakashi, if they only got to see the façade he put on for ANBU or if they’d truly known the man behind the mask. Genma had been in his graduating class, she remembered. He was a few years older than the Copy Ninja but she figured they looked familiar enough with each other.

 

“He gave it to me as a jounin graduation gift. Yesterday, ” Sakura answered, hoping they would commiserate with her at how ridiculous it was that she got her present five months late.

 

“In my graduation he gave me a pack of kunai,” Yugao pouted.

 

Sakura was in the middle of laughing at her teammates' barely hidden jealousy when a voice interrupted her.

 

“You were never my student like Sakura, Kohai-chan.”

 

Kakashi was standing on a branch on the tree next to the one they were leaning against. His eyebrow was raised as if to say, “You’re all elite ninja and none of you noticed me here?” But he didn’t voice that thought.

 

Sakura immediately sat up, feeling a bit like she was caught red-handed but she had no idea why. Kakashi’s eyes took in the scene before him as the others greeted him with various degrees of excitement.

 

She wondered if he saw how comfortable she was with her team. Carefree and trusting in a way she never really had been with Team 7. Back then she was always feeling like she had something to prove, be it that she was worthy of Sasuke or even that she deserved to be placed in dai-nana-han. 

 

She noticed Kakashi surreptitiously take in her messy hair and the way Genma casually tugged on the tail of her braid to get her to lay back down, on the way Yugao was absentmindedly massaging the muscles of Sakura’s calf when she put them on her lap. Sakura narrowed her eyes slightly and pointedly snuggled back into Genma’s lap. She had nothing to prove to him. 

 

“We were thinking about going over to Yakiniku Q for dinner, senpai,” Tenzo said, breaking Sakura out of her reverie. “Do you want to join us?”

 

“Yeah, Hatake, come with us,” Genma insisted before he could say no. “It’s been a while since I managed to catch you around the village.” 

 

“You’ll see me tonight at the Rusty Kunai.” Kakashi smiled behind his mask and dropped down from the tree so they could all see each other better. “Gai’s kid’s birthday, remember? He’s been hounding me about this as soon as I came back.”

 

“Wait, what?” Sakura sat up straight again, this time slapping Genma’s hand away when he tugged on her braid. Then she immediately felt bad about it and caught it in hers before he could retreat. “Which kid?”

 

“His carbon copy,” Genma answered. 

 

“ Shit ,” Sakura said, slapping her free hand on her forehead. “I forgot it was Lee’s birthday. Shit, shit, shit.” 

 

Sakura started gathering her things, clipping her forgotten mask to her belt and sheathing her tanto. 

 

“Oh, yeah,” Genma drawled, stretching lazily as he got up too. “I forgot you used to train with the kid.” 

 

“I did and, oh my God, I haven’t even seen him in so long!” Sakura hurriedly took her hair out of its messy braid to put it up in a slightly less messy bun. “I have to run and see if Tenten’s shop is still open.”

 

“Calm down, Petal,” Genma laughed and took a hold of her arm. Sakura fought the urge to glare at how tidy his ponytail was. He always put his hair up when in ANBU gear and somehow always looked ready for a date even when he was supposed to look disgusting like she did. “I got Gai a gift for his birthday that I never got around to giving to him. You can have it.” 

 

“What did you get?” Sakura asked, suddenly hopeful. Genma shrugged.

 

“A tiny green suit.” Genma shrugged. “It was a gag gift.”

 

Sakura smacked her forehead again, feeling it sting from continuous abuse.

 

“ Genma!” Sakura tried to look crossed but she couldn’t help a little huff of a laugh. The others joined in.

 

“I bought a new collapsible bo staff,” Yugao offered. “You can take it and then get another one for me whenever you can, Wolfie-chan.” 

 

“Senpai.” Sakura crouched to grab both sides of the woman’s face. “You’re a lifesaver. I owe you big time.” 

 

Yugao laughed and waved her off, her cheeks slightly red. 

 

“Don’t worry about it!” 

 

They all left the training grounds a few moments later, her team scheduling to meet up in half an hour and Kakashi promising he wouldn’t be too late for Lee’s birthday. Sakura felt her heart full in a way it hadn't been in a long time.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura went back to the estate just long enough to shower and change out of her ANBU uniform. She put on her mid-thigh lycra shorts and a matching long-sleeved shirt, strapped on her pouches, grabbed her haori and was out the door in less than fifteen minutes. Ino would kill her when she saw that she was basically wearing her uniform.

 

She didn’t let her hair finish drying and instead weaved it into her usual braid as she made her way to Yakiniku Q. Usually she’d wear her hitai-ate on her forehead but after so long working with ANBU, it didn’t feel comfortable anymore.

 

It wasn’t like most people in the village didn’t know who she was, anyway.

 

Sakura slid into a booth next to Genma across from Tenzo and Yugao. She wasn’t surprised that Kakashi wasn’t there. Still, it was annoying that the tiniest bit of disappointment coiled itself on her belly.

 

They were both the ones left behind. They were what was left of Team 7. Sakura had found comfort in Team Ro, she had found companionship and care and support. She wished his history with Team Ro would be enough to make him stay. 

 

Despite her increasingly depressive thoughts, the meal was perfect. Like any other team meeting, there was a lot of teasing and laughter, most of it surrounding her newfound nickname, Sakura-hime. She left with her arms wrapped around one of Genma’s and together they made their way towards the Rusty Kunai.

 

The place was bustling with activity, the Rookie 9 plus Team Gai were in one corner with Genma’s friends in the other and the few other unlucky patrons were being pushed around by the rowdiness of the two groups. It looked like everyone had gotten started a while back.

 

“Who’re you looking to score tonight?” Genma wiggled his eyebrows at her, his senbon bobbing between his teeth.

 

“Don’t be crass.” Sakura sniffed, faking primness she had long since shed. Genma laughed and she smirked in response. 

 

He liked to tease that the best day of his life was when she told him she’d lost her virginity, Genma thought she’d make the best wingman in history when she was old enough. And he was right. The two of them often set each other up with pre-approved companions for the night, be it in ANBU or outside the village. Sakura especially liked setting him up with ninja-hungry civilians, the stories she made up for him were always fun to spin.

 

“Yeah, I guess the crowd tonight is a bit young for your tastes.” Genma nodded, his eyes scanning the place as they pushed their way forward to reach their respective friends.

 

That wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t that Sakura actively sought out older guys, it was just that the few Genma had thrown her way that were her age were too… innocent. They didn’t have any understanding behind their eyes when talking about missions, the bright shine and idealism in their eyes always present and most of them didn’t even compensate with being adequately experienced in bed. Shinsei may have spoiled her a bit during their one week together.

 

Sakura couldn’t connect with any of them and even when she really forced herself, she couldn’t enjoy the experience as much as they seemed to.

 

“Who are you looking to score?” Sakura asked instead of answering. Just because they would spend the night in opposite corners of the bar didn’t mean she couldn’t perform her duties as wingwoman.

 

“Knowing how Gai can be, I’ll probably be too drunk to do anything tonight.” Genma laughed.

 

“Oi, Genma!” Ebisu called from their right, waving his arms frantically in the air and almost hitting the people he was with on the table. “Over here!”

 

Sakura snickered and raised a bit on her feet to place a kiss on Genma’s cheek.

 

“Good luck.” She smiled when Genma flicked her on the forehead. “Come find me if you need help getting home.” 

 

Sakura didn’t spare their table a second look but she thought she’d seen a flash of white hair in the corner of her eye. Kakashi had beat them there. They were really late. 

 

Sakura hurried over to her friends and was soon swept away in their drunken antics. Lee, although thankfully sober, seemed to be drunk on the environment, crying over her present, hugging everyone who came within two meters of him and singing loudly to whatever songs were playing.

 

Ino was talking Sakura’s ear off, something about her not getting any if she chose to always be wearing her uniform on a night out, when Sakura noticed someone standing next to Shikamaru by the darts.

 

“Temari-san!” Sakura waved her hand in the air.

 

The blonde girl turned her head to look and immediately shot her a pleased smile when she recognised her. Despite having talked about meeting whenever Temari came over to help with the Chunin Exams, they had never gotten the chance.

 

Sakura was sent on so many missions at that time that the short week Temari had been in Konoha went by without them meeting once. Over the years, they had kept up with each other through correspondence but they had never gotten too deep in their discussions. Since Sakura’s life had been solely turned towards her career as a kunoichi and Temari’s was about helping her brother in his role as Kazekage, the not confidential topics they could discuss were very small.

 

Still, Sakura would consider the blonde girl a friend. 

 

“Hi, Sakura!” The blonde surprised Sakura by punching her on the shoulder. “I can’t believe it’s this hard to find you around your own village, you bitch.” 

 

Sakura laughed at the complete lack of formality. It seemed Temari was already on her way to being drunk and, really, Sakura wasn’t all that far behind. She was already on her third bottle of sake.

 

“I’m being kept busy by Tsunade-shishou.” Sakura shrugged.

 

“Sakura and Neji are the only ones who made jounin so far,” Shikamaru explained, leaning closer so he could be heard. “We barely see the two of them.” 

 

Sakura raised an eyebrow not at what he was saying but at how close the two of them were. She caught Temari’s eyes and was surprised when the slightest of flushes dusted her tanned cheeks. Sakura barked a laugh. Seems like dear Shika-kun had finally made a move. Although, knowing the two of them, it was more probable that Temari had been the one to push for more.

 

Good for them.

 

“Psht!” Ino waved her hand around, going for dismissive but settling somewhere between maniac and apoplectic. “We see more of Neji’s great shiny hair than Sakura! The girl is a ghost!”

 

Sakura smiled at her drunk friend and pulled her into a sideways hug.

 

“I’m a busy girl, Ino-chan.” She laughed at Ino’s indignant squawk at the honorific. “Now, tell me more about Neji’s great, shiny hair.”

 

The night went on and Sakura was content in her little corner, standing a bit away from where most of the Konoha 11 were causing a big ruckus. She was well into drunk territory, leaning against the bar and watching her friends with a nostalgic smile on her face.

 

It really had been too long since she’d gotten together with any of them. Ever since she made jounin and even a bit before that, she barely had time to invest in her social life. Sometimes Ino managed to kidnap her between missions to hang out with the girls or something but with most of her missions nowadays being ANBU, she couldn’t easily find her around the village anymore. 

 

It wasn’t that she was completely alone. Team Ro always made an effort to get together after a mission or training session and she had taken to spending much of her time in headquarters. She always had lunch there when she was around the village, either with someone from her team or some of her students.

 

It was just that she missed the simplicity of the Konoha 11. And god dammit, she missed her boys so much.

 

“It gets to be a bit too much at times, doesn’t it?” Neji said, startling Sakura out of her depressive thoughts. She knew there had been someone moving towards her but she was surprised they had decided to talk to her, even more so when she realised who it was.

 

Neji was wearing his traditional hakama and kimono set with his pouches on, just like Sakura. He didn’t look drunk but there was a certain flush to his cheeks that could be either that or because of the heat inside the bar. He turned his head slightly to the side when Sakura didn’t answer right away.

 

“I guess I’m just not used to it anymore,” Sakura replied at last, her voice calm and not really betraying how drunk she was. She offered him a tiny, a bit self-deprecating smile before turning back around to watch Ino shamelessly flirt with both Kiba and Shino at the same time and Temari laugh at something Shikamaru had said.

 

“How’s ANBU?” Neji asked, his deep voice completely unbothered, as if he hadn’t just asked her about something confidential. Sakura simply blinked at him but he didn’t bother to wait for a reply. “Everyone knows it, Haruno, or at least highly suspect it. Especially the jounin. Did you know it’s common for new jounin to take missions together? It’s so we can get used to each other’s fighting style since unless you were from the same genin team, most of us don’t know each other very well. Mozuku and I have been in almost five missions together, none of them with you.” 

 

Mozuku was the sweet TI guy who had made jounin with Neji and Sakura. And no, she didn’t know it was common for newbie jounin to do that, even though it made sense. There wasn’t much she could really tell him, though, so Sakura just smiled at him, a bit more familiarly than she would be normally.

 

“You’re chatty tonight, Neji.” She winked cheekily at him and was only satisfied when his cheeks flushed darker. She wondered how much darker she could make them. “You know, Ino was right, your hair really is great and shiny.” 

 

Neji seemed to choke a bit on his next breath and Sakura pressed further.

 

“You know, you and Ino both have great hair. I’m sure if you want some company for later, she’ll love to talk about that…” Sakura smirked when Neji visibly composed himself, averted his eyes from hers and raised his chin a bit.

 

“Don’t be boorish.” Sakura barked a laugh at how similar he was reacting to when she’d mockingly replied to Genma earlier in the night. 

 

“I’m just teasing, Hyuga,” Sakura raised her hands in a sign of backing off and bumped her shoulder with his. She didn’t want to actually upset the guy. He rolled his pale eyes but Sakura had enough experience with the sullen and silent type to know what that slight twitch of his lips meant. He was amused.

 

“Besides,” he shrugged, “I’m almost certain my night will end in getting all of team Gai to their houses safely. I doubt they will remember how.” 

 

Sakura hummed and thanked the bartender when he placed the bottle of sake she had asked for earlier. With a bit of a stretch, she grabbed another cup for Neji from behind the bar and poured for him. 

 

“I imagine that’s how my night is going to end too.” Sakura smiled at him when he returned the favour and they both clinked their glasses. “Kanpai.”

 

“Kanpai,” he echoed.

 

They drank in silence for a while, quietly observing their friends’ antics. They seemed to be losing steam, finally, some of them had passed out already. With a quick look towards Genma’s side, Sakura saw that he and Ebisu were both leaning against each other. The others at the table were either talking loudly over each other or passed out. Gai was face-down on top of the table and Anko was drawing something on the seat of his spandex suit.

 

“I miss Naruto.”

 

Sakura’s breath stuttered in her chest. She was surprised by the statement but also at how much it hurt. It felt like a punch to the gut. One of Shishou’s.

 

“I do too,” Sakura murmured, not being able to muster anything more than that. 

 

“I can’t imagine what you went through, losing your team like that.” Neji shrugged and finished his drink. “I admire you, Haruno. Not many would have been able to come back from that, let alone someone with a civilian background. And yet here you are, one of the most important people in the village. You’re the true example that Naruto was right, our destinies depend only on us.”

 

Sakura stared at him but when he turned his head towards her, she couldn’t hold his stare. She swirled the last of her sake on her cup before downing it.

 

“I don’t know about being one of the most important people in the village, Neji-san,” Sakura scoffed, trying to think of ways to move on from this topic.

 

“Maybe not today, but there will come a time when the village will look at our generation for guidance and you’ll be there, the Hokage’s apprentice, the Senju apparent heir, a kunoichi that climbed the ranks faster than any of her peers.” Neji smiled then and Sakura was struck by how different that simple act changed everything about him. “People will start realising that pretty soon, I imagine.”

 

Sakura gave a breathy little laugh, not really sure how to reply. She shook her head a little and Neji’s smile grew.

 

“You became a jounin when I did,” she chose to remind him. Neji shook his head and some of his hair brushed Sakura’s hand where it rested on the bartop. It was only then that she realised it wasn’t being held in his usual loose ponytail. 

 

“You’re on another level where you are,” he said simply. And really, he was right. Nothing quite compared to ANBU. She just wished that she could find the words to tell him that there shouldn’t be this much yearning for it in his voice. In the end, she couldn’t say more, they really weren’t close and alcohol was seriously muddling her thoughts. “I think I’m going to rescue Gai-sensei now.”

 

Sakura turned to follow his gaze. Anko had probably gotten bored and had moved on to climb Ebisu. Quite literally climb him like a tree. Genma was laughing uproariously at something she was saying and poor Ebisu’s face was so red, Sakura feared for his blood pressure. Kakashi was grabbing Gai by the back of his vest.

 

“I think Kakashi has it handled.” She pointed with her chin towards where Lee was crying and singing at the same time while sitting on top of Tenten’s shoulders. “You should help those two get home.”

 

Sakura placed her cup on the bar and started to leave. She didn’t know what exactly stopped her, but she turned around to shoot a small smile towards Neji.

 

“I hope we can go on missions in the future, Hyuga.” Sakura gave him a small wave. “Take care of everyone, okay?”

 

She had already turned to leave when she heard him reply.

 

“I hope so too, Haruno. Take care of yourself.”

 

Sakura reached Genma just as he was beginning to slide down the side of the booth, his legs no longer able to support him with how hard he was laughing. Anko was still making a scene with Ebisu and Ino’s sensei was the only one to see her hold him up. Kakashi was already halfway out of the bar.

 

“C’mon, old man,” Sakura grunted with effort, her whole world tipping sideways, as she ducked beneath Genma’s arm to support him. “Let’s go home already.”

 

“Blossom, as my good old friend Gai would say, the you—!” Genma stopped mid sentence, his face palling considerably as he took a huge gulp of air. Then burped. 

 

“I swear to fuck, Shiranui, you make me clean up your puke again and I’ll shove my fist so far up your ass…” Sakura started threatening but was interrupted by a sharp bark of laughter. It was Ino’s sensei. Apparently he’d gotten up when he had seen she was trying to help Genma and came closer while she was distracted.

 

“Need help, kid?” He pointed with his chin towards Genma and Sakura turned her head at him just enough so she could see that her best friend had his eyes closed as he took deep breaths. Sakura rolled her eyes at him and turned back to Asuma.

 

“That’s okay, Asuma-san,” Sakura said, shaking her head but quickly aborting the movement because it made her world spin. “I, uh, I got him.” 

 

Asuma was already shaking his head and moving towards Genma’s other side to duck beneath his arm and take most of his weight.

 

“It’s fine, I was already heading home too.” 

 

Sakura didn’t bother pointing out that his beer bottle on the table was still full and that Kurenai-san didn’t exactly seem like she was ready to leave. It was obvious that the two of them had something, even though they tried hard to hide it. Ino was such a gossip and she made sure to keep Sakura in the loop of every single detail that popped up. 

 

“Do you mind?” Asuma asked when they finally got through the crowd and left the bar. He was waving a packet of cigarettes in the air so she could see it. 

 

“Not at all,” Sakura said. “Can I have one?”

 

Asuma narrowed his eyes at her for a minute while he lit his cigarette one-handed. He shrugged then, almost sending Genma to the floor and handed the pack and the lighter over.

 

“Ah, shit man, yeah. You’re a jounin and not my kid,” he muttered to himself and Sakura laughed. 

 

“You’re a medic!” Genma exclaimed, seemingly having recovered from his bout of sickness. “You can’t smoke.”

 

“I’m a medic!” Sakura mimicked, taking a drag before passing everything back to Asuma. “I can heal my lungs.”

 

And while that was true it wasn’t like she needed to. Smoking had become natural during her time with Shinsei and while she didn’t keep it up as a habit, it was something she enjoyed when she was drunk. Or after sex, sometimes. 

 

“Just don’t tell Hatake, alright kid?” Asuma grumbled as they trudged up the slight slope that would send them towards the main street. Sakura snorted. She wouldn’t normally comment on this, but she was drunk and her lips were loose and the nicotine was making her fingers tingly.

 

“Look, Kakashi and I are not like Lee and Gai, okay?” Sakura waved the hand that wasn’t clutching at Genma’s back around and took another drag before the word vomit began. “I mean sure, it’s cute that he considers me, you know, pack, and gave me his father’s wolves but like? You know? He was never a good teacher to me. Or a teacher, period. He never looked at me like his kid and we never had real bonding moments like he had with S-Sasuke-kun and—oh, wow, I called him Sasuke- kun. Hadn’t done that in a while.” Sakura hiccuped. “Then okay, we’re—we’re family, I guess. Pack . ‘Cause he’s Team 7 and I’m Team 7 and that means we stick together. That’s the only thing he really taught me, you know.”

 

Sakura took a deep breath. She didn’t remember being this drunk. She took another drag and then glared at the cigarette in her hands. Stupid nicotine had made her drunker.

 

“Flower,” Genma said as he brought his hand towards her head to smush it closer to him. His words were still slurring more than hers, she noticed, feeling victorious over it for some reason. “Hatake taught you how to tree walk.” 

 

Sakura scoffed and waved her hand in the air so hard the cigarette flew from her fingers.

 

“I got it on my first try, that was hardly teaching,” Sakura mumbled and interrupted herself with a yawn. She blinked at the apartment complex in relief. Thank god they got there and she didn’t need to embarrass herself in front of Ino’s sensei anymore.

 

“Thanks, man, we got it from here.” Genma pushed away from Asuma, putting more weight on Sakura in the process. She swore loudly and used chakra to overcompensate the jellyness of her limbs. Maybe a little too much chakra because her feet cracked the ground where she dug her heels. 

 

“Oops,” she said.

 

“I’ll get you upstairs and then take Sakura home.” Asuma was considerably less drunk than either of them but even he couldn’t hide the slur of his sentence.

 

“Sakura’s staying here, it’s fine,” Genma said and waved his hand, preparing to go.

 

“I think it’ll be faster if we go up the wall,” Sakura pouted at Genma’s window which he always left open whenever he was in the village. “Come on, we’re ANBU, I think we can handle some wall climbing, old man.”

 

“ANBU?” Asuma said in surprise and then fumbled to catch his cigarette before it fell. Shit, was she not supposed to say that? “Oh, yeah. I remember during the jounin exams…”

 

Well. Classified information leakage averted. 

 

“She’s our co-captain.” Genma hugged the arm still around her shoulders closer to him, smashing Sakura in the forehead with his chin in the process. “Next month, she’ll be a fully fledged captain! I just hope she doesn’t leave us then…” He pouted and Sakura was shocked out of her drunken stupor by the tears in his eyes.

 

“You’re just like Gai-sensei, aren’t you?” Sakura patted his chest in comfort and tried to centre herself enough to make the jump to his balcony. “Alright, time for sleep. Say bye-bye to Asuma-san, Gen-chan.” 

 

Genma pouted at her and started going on about being treated like a child and if she was going to keep doing that the least she could do was breastfeed him.

.

 

.

 

.

Notes:

What do you think? Too much like a filler episode? Some things are quite important in this chapter, I would say there's a lot of foreshadowing in this one even though it feels a bit like I wrote a chapter about nothing haha This was originally supposed to be one huge chapter along with next week's update but I just felt like they were too different and would stand better apart. Do let me know what your favourite part of this one was!

Btw, did you guys notice I managed to update on every friday for like... over a month????!! I'm just so fucking proud of myself, I've never managed to write this much and this consistently. I gotta be honest, I didn't think I could do it and that's why I never even mentioned it to you guys to be on the lookout for a new chapter, especially cause I still haven't quite gotten the hang of updating during a set time.... Well, that can be my next goal, I guess! For now, help me create a name for our lucky fridays like Update Friday? New Chapter Friday? I dunno, I'm too sleepy to keep going haha it's almost Saturday!!

I was wondering if you guys would prefer I update every two weeks with a longer chapter? I don't really keep tabs on how long a chapter is before I update, I mainly divide things by how they feel and how they should be read but I know it can get a bit frustrating to only receive a bit of the story at times. What do you guys think?

Yo, deadass? You guys are fucking wonderful. I love y'all so much and I don't think you'll ever realise how much you make my day better. I'm really behind on answering reviews but you guys know by now that I love replying to each individually without giving a general "thank you :)" like some authors do and that takes time. Time that it's currently being used to write a lot every week >.<' I'm currently SWAMPED by uni stuff so I probably won't be able to reply to them before the end of the month but I swear I'll try my best. I totally understand if you get discouraged by this and decide not to comment until I have time but it would mean the world to me if you can keep giving me feedback until then!

Happy Halloween :)

Much love, J

P.S.: Don't forget to come say hi to me on tumblr! I'm justjstuff over there ;-)

Chapter 29: Senzen

Notes:

Hiya, guys :) Happy friday, all. I'm still waiting to figure out a nice quirky way to call our weekly update fridays 'cause I be a nerd like that, mkay?

This is a month after last chapter, just so no one gets too confused. I'll probably write down the timeline soon for you guys lol.

Enjoy :)

Sakura entered the village through the eastern barrier. It has been six months since she first learned the way to get in and out of the secret barrier and nothing felt quite as exciting as taking point on an ANBU mission to her. Her team moved smoothly behind her, following her orders as quickly as they did Tenzo-taichou’s.

 

They moved fast through the woods. It was the middle of the day and while those training grounds were mostly used by ANBU, she didn’t want to risk anyone seeing them. They looked feral.

 

It had been one of those missions. One moment, everything was okay, intel saying that they would be outnumbered two by one but that was okay because they weren’t just any team. They were elite and the enemy’s skill wasn’t a match for theirs. Still, no one could have accounted for bad intel. 

 

Instead of two by one, they were outnumbered by about ten to one . Bad intel, that’s for sure, they’d just have to figure out if it was on purpose or not. No ANBU could have gone through that city and not noticed how disturbed the forest around it was. As in, there was a huge ass camp of rogues outside the city limits that they hadn’t been informed about. 

 

It was a tough mission, not because it had almost killed them but the idea that someone in their ranks had set them up had settled in their stomachs like lead. Sakura could actually taste the bitterness of it. 

 

She had sent Kaede, the fastest of the pack, ahead with a scroll for Tsunade and the Commander, asking for a meeting as soon as they arrived. Team Ro didn’t bother cleaning up or even going to the hospital, they made their way straight to Tsunade’s office.

 

Sakura had taken two hours while her teammates were asleep just before dawn to heal most of their injuries. She was exhausted, but she wanted to get this out of their hands as soon as possible.

 

She opened the doors to the office and paused.

 

Her surprise only lasted a millisecond before she was stepping further inside the room, her team in diamond formation behind her. They were strung up and relaxing seemed to be impossible for the near future.  

 

“You said you suspected the bad intel was on purpose, Haruno,” Toshio said without preambles. “Why?”

 

He was leaning against the wall to the right of where her shishou was sitting behind her desk. What had given her pause, however, was that Kakashi was dangling from the windowsill, one foot hanging down inside the room with Kaede sitting next to him, being petted on the head.

 

As soon as the wolf noticed her, he came to bump his head on her hip.

 

“The signs of a large group were unmistakable.” Sakura gave Kaede a scratch behind the ear and rested her hand there. “I remember reading the reports on that recon mission and seeing that one operative stayed behind to continue assessing the situation. There’s no way he couldn’t have noticed anything.” 

 

“That’s a strong accusation, you need to be absolutely sure of this, Wolf-taichou.” Neither of the usually carefree ninja in the room were taking this lightly and Sakura was glad. She didn’t think she could stop herself from punching a hole through the wall if they had joked about anything at the moment.

 

“All I’m sure, Commander, is that my team was welcomed into a delicate situation by a fucking bloodbath.” Sakura tried to stay calm, but she was so tense, her body was almost shaking. Inner was having a hard time pushing all her emotions back and Sakura could do nothing but close her fist tighter on Kaede’s fur.

 

“Did you make contact with the operative?” Tenzo asked from her left. Sakura eased up on her hold when Kaede warned her in her mind that she was hurting him. With a quiet apology, she patted him once more before using her hand to take off her mask.

 

Screw protocol. 

 

“We sent a hawk more than two hours ago. He has,” Toshio chanced a look at the clock on the wall, “fifteen minutes to answer and then we’re sending the hunter nin.” 

 

Tension settled on the room like a blanket. For a second, Sakura wished she was on the squad that would be hunting down the bastard, but she knew that was stupid. First because while it hadn’t been completely confirmed that he had fed them false intel, the hunter nin would have to question him on the field and she wasn’t so sure she would be able to pull her punches. And second because while she had taken the time to heal her teammates, she had just fixed the sprain in her ankle and kept moving. 

 

“You’re hurt,” Tsunade spoke for the first time. She had a deep frown between her brows, her golden eyes fixed on Sakura. 

 

Sakura merely fixed her mask on her belt and brushed her hair away from her face properly. Tsunade tsked and muttered a few obscenities before ordering her to heal herself or head to the hospital. Sakura narrowed her eyes at her shishou in irritation. 

 

Whatever , she thought. Inside that office were only people she trusted. There was no need for formalities. Sakura dragged the chair she usually sat on and pushed it closer to the open window Kakashi was sitting on. She needed a bit of air.

 

“What a fucking mess,” she muttered to herself as she sat down. She stripped her gloves and arm guards, letting them fall to the floor with a thud alongside her outer armour. She had been stabbed quite a few times and her long sleeved shirt was ripped along her ribs. Thank fuck everything major wasn’t hit because that would be a bitch to fix with three broken ribs like she had.

 

The others sat down in different chairs after Tsunade barked at them to relax if they were going to stay. 

 

“Are you okay?” Kakashi spoke so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. 

 

For once, Icha Icha was nowhere to be seen. He was just as tense as she and the rest of her team were, the muscles of his forearms visibly strained as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

 

“They’re sending you.” It wasn’t a question. If Kakashi had been in the village when Kaede got there, he would be the obvious choice. Friend Killer Kakashi. Cold-Blooded Kakashi. He had done his fair share of hunter nin missions in the past. He was the perfect candidate for it. An excellent hunter. Ruthless but not immoral.

 

Kakashi merely hummed in response, his eye tracing the bead of blood that was mixing with sweat on her temple. Sakura sighed and got to work.

 

The others had settled around them in different chairs and were looking worriedly at her. Kaede sat next to her and rested his head on her lap. 

 

“Sakura,” Toshio said, “just go to the hospital.”

 

Sakura frowned at him. She was almost done anyway, there was no need for that. And she really didn’t appreciate how exasperated he sounded. She wasn’t Kakashi , she wasn’t refusing treatment out of stubbornness she just… had the abilities to heal herself.

 

“I’m going to get a headstart on that report.” So she ignored him.

 

Sakura finished healing her ribs but didn’t have any chakra to spare on the small cuts all over herself. She took the mission scroll from her pack and gestured for Kakashi to give her some space on the windowsill to work on it. It took her all of ten minutes to write it while the others talked quietly to each other.

 

“Yosh… This is it.” Sakura blew on the ink to let it dry and then looked at her team. “Take a look at this and see if you want to add anything. Kakashi should read this before he leaves.”

 

Sakura pursed her lips and glared at the scroll. She would have to get up to go hand it to them.

 

“Just have Kaede bring it over, Pinky,” Genma suggested. It was a testament to how exhausted they were that no one was volunteering to get it.

 

“He has blood all over his muzzle, old man,” Sakura replied. Then with an exaggerated pout, went for the kill, “Gen-chan, your taichou is soo tired…”

 

Genma rolled his eyes but there was a small smile on his lips when he forced himself out of his chair. Yugao snickered tiredly and Tenzo looked at them with a tired expression on his usually placid face. Sakura was glad she could manage to make her team relax at least a little bit after all the shit they had to deal with during this mission.

 

“Shit, my head is killing me,” Sakura muttered to herself while her team read her report. She took the tie out of her braid and started smoothing her hair out of it as the others worked. Kaede growled low on his throat to show how unhappy he was that she was hurt, making Sakura’s heart swell with love for him. It was strange how quickly they’d gotten attached to each other. Sakura massaged one hand against her scalp while the other scratched Kaede behind his ears. 

 

So what that the wolf’s already red fur was drenched in blood. She was just as nasty at the moment.

 

Sakura quietly listened to the conversation going on around her, leaning her head on her arms against the windowsill as she paid attention. She closed her tired eyes when a particularly pleasing breeze ruffled her bangs. God, she was going to pass out any minute now if she didn’t focus on something.

 

Bringing her focus to her chakra, Sakura heightened her senses. Smell, sight, hearing. It had become a common practice for her while working with the wolves. Something she was slowly improving on, and learning how to use during battle. 

 

Using a bit of chakra concentrated against certain areas, she could heighten her senses just like she did while using her muscles to obtain super strength. It was dangerous, yes, but Sakura was extremely proficient with her chakra. 

 

Sakura frowned.

 

“You smell like blood.” Her voice was low enough that it didn’t cut through the light chatter around the room but it still made Kakashi’s head turn slightly towards her.

 

Sakura took another careful sniff, trying to determine how old it was. She wasn’t good enough like her wolves yet to be able to determine the exact hours or days but she could tell it was on the fresh side, mostly situated around his hands. Curiously, though, his gloves were clean. Upon careful inspection, there were only a few tiny spots on his flak jacket’s right shoulder. She could also smell the faint sting of ozone. 

 

“How can you tell?” Kakashi asked quietly but Sakura ignored him. A sudden rush of emotion she couldn’t quite control in her exhausted state rose from her stomach to her throat, making it knot and burn. 

 

He had just come home from a mission, one that had him using Chidori, and now he was being sent away on a hunter nin specialised mission that was going to be so emotionally taxing… Sakura scowled. 

 

“Sakura-hime is practising with the pack,” Kaede huffed, his tail quietly thumping on the floor. He seemed to sense her mounting anxiety and added, “She’s come a long way! Tou-san is really proud of her.” 

 

“Sakura-hime?” Tsunade asked and all the warm and fuzzy emotions that had begun making their way to Sakura’s heart at Kaede’s words disappeared. “That’s the cutest shit.” 

 

Sakura straightened her back and dropped her arms from where they had been resting on the windowsill. She turned to her shishou, a cold glare directed her way.

 

“You’re sending him on another back to back mission.” Sakura’s voice was low but the barely restrained aggressiveness underneath it gave everyone pause. 

 

She could feel the tension in the room skyrocketing, her own anxieties bubbling to the surface. Maybe she was stepping out of line, specially by bringing this up in front of other people, even more specifically in front of someone who they weren’t even sure they could completely trust yet, but still. Still.

 

Sakura was fucking tired. She had just spent the last day fighting for her and her teammate’s lives on a fucking shitshow of a mission, slept for a grand total of three hours, spent the next couple of them healing her loved ones only to run back to the village and realise one of the people she cared the most about was being sent into a complicated mission right after coming back from one he had to use the Chidori.

 

She was tired. But she was also fucking pissed.

 

“He’s available and he’s perfect for this mission,” Tsunade replied, unabashedly taking a bottle of sake from her desk and pouring herself a drink. She didn’t look at Sakura. “We need him for this.”

 

With something close to a snarl, Sakura quickly got up and marched to her shishou’s desk. Her chair skidded slightly behind her. 

 

“ We need him ,” Sakura seethed, “for a lot more than just one mission. Shishou, send someone else, he needs to rest, he needs to—”

 

Tsunade set her cup forcefully to the table but still wasn’t looking at her when she cut her off.

 

“I’m well aware of the brat’s usefulness,” she conceded, showing Sakura that she knew she’d been talking about their war with Danzo and the council. “Right now, I need him hunting this bastard down and figuring out whether he was responsible or not.” 

 

Something inside Sakura just snapped. She smacked her hands on the desk and was satisfied when she heard the sound of the wood cracking. Tsunade finally— finally —looked at her when the sake fell over. Her amber eyes were alarmed and growing as angry as Sakura’s but she could feel nothing but grim satisfaction at getting a reaction.

 

“What fucking use is he to us if he’s dead?” Sakura exclaimed, voice shaky and full of emotion. 

 

Inner was having a hard time pushing all her emotions to their respectful boxes. She seemed to be short-circuiting a bit, wrapping Sakura up in the cloak and mask she used for missions. Sakura felt tired and unstable, like the simple crack in her armour was spindling all over it. She wanted to scream and to cry and she really wanted a nap.

 

Sakura lost control of the chakra she’d been gathering on her eyes, ears and nose for her practice and it spiralled out of control for a second, making her violently flinch and cover her forehead with a hand.

 

Suddenly a warm hand was settling on her shoulder, grounding her on one side while Kaede pushed himself against her other side.

 

“It’s been fifteen minutes, Sakura.” Sakura composed herself enough to look at him. She was glad he wasn’t giving his trademark fake grin and was instead furrowing his brow at her. She was even more glad when he didn’t immediately retract his hand, she’d thought she’d fall without it. “You should go and get some rest. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?”

 

Sakura grit her teeth when Kakashi took a slight step back but kept looking at him. She took a deep breath to centre herself and used the slightest amount of chakra to keep her eyes dry. Fuck, she wanted to cry so bad.

 

She’d been worried about Kakashi for a long time now but something about him giving the wolves to her had set something off. She felt more responsible for him now than ever and what he had said that day had been niggling in the back of her mind for over a month now. 

 

Kakashi had completely rejected the idea of him having kids and while that alone wasn’t particularly troubling or even her business, really, there had been a sort of finality to it that had scared her. It felt for a moment like he was conformed with the fact that he probably wouldn’t have a future. Like it was okay that he wouldn’t stick around to attend one of her classes because he’d figured that he’d die in battle and that staying alive for a day longer was just a luxury at this point.

 

Sakura took another breath before nodding slightly and stepping further back. She immediately bumped into Genma and almost sobbed at how comforting his presence was then. He put a hand to her forehead.

 

“You’re burning up, Pinky,” he muttered around his senbon and allowed her to brush his hand away. Thankfully, he didn’t step much further back, sensing correctly that she needed him close even though she had pushed him away.

 

Sakura turned to her team, completely ignoring Tsunade and the Commander at this point but not missing the looks on their faces, furrowed brows hiding surprise and alarm. Both Yugao and Tenzo were standing now and looking quite worriedly at her.

 

“You’re dismissed,” she said. “We meet at Genma’s in an hour for food, sake and a movie.” 

 

“Hey, wait a minute.” Genma jostled her with his shoulder a bit but quickly took a hold of her waist when it looked like she couldn’t quite take it. He tried valiantly to infuse some levity in the room. “What if I was planning on entertaining today?”

 

Sakura glared at him, her earlier anger leaving her almost completely and exhaustion taking its hold on her.

 

“We’re having a sleepover.” She raised her eyebrows at him and didn’t wait for him to reply before turning on Kakashi.

 

“I’m watering your plants while you’re gone.” Sakura raised her chin and slightly narrowed her eyes. “So you better let me know that you’re back or else expect me to be popping by your apartment unannounced.”

 

Kakashi chuckled and followed Genma’s cue to try and dissolve the lingering tension. He waved a carefree hand in the air.

 

“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan~”

 

“I’m watching over Mr. Ukki, Kakashi,” Sakura sped over him, saying it more like an order than an offer. 

 

He sighed, seemingly resigned and Sakura nodded to herself. Then she patted Kaede on the head.

 

“Good job today, pup.” She smiled slightly at him. “You can go back now, okay?”

 

“Will you be okay, Sakura-hime?” Kaede licked at her fingers in concern. “I can stay  longer.”

 

“Don’t worry about me.” Sakura used what little strength she had left to start clumsily climbing Genma’s back. “Gen-chan is taking care of me. Go on now, tell everyone I said hi and I’ll see you tomorrow at noon, sharp.”

 

With a huff of goodbye, Kaede puffed away. Sakura coughed slightly on Genma’s shoulder. Her eyes caught Tsunade’s for a bit and she felt herself relax.

 

Her little tantrum had been ill timed but necessary and she didn’t quite regret it, even if it was already making her a bit embarrassed. In her shishou’s eyes there wasn’t any reprimand, though, only concern. She understood Sakura.

 

“Go on then, old man.” Sakura patted Genma on the chest. “Shunshin us away so I can take a shower already.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

It was barely a week later when Sakura received a summons from her shishou. It was Ino in her shiny purple get up, coming to find her before she left the house for the day. Not only was it strange that Tsunade was summoning her when they lived together and mostly settled things together at home but also that she had sent Ino . She wasn’t used as a messenger, normally. 

 

Sakura had no idea why her shishou wouldn’t just talk to her at home. The incident in Tsunade’s office had long since been put to rest, none of them apologising but both okay with moving on from the tension. Kakashi had caught the guy—who had indeed been guilty—and brought him back to prison, all in just a few days. Everything went fine, and Sakura could breathe a little easier, especially when Tsunade sent him to a mission with Asuma and Gai in the land of Iron just the day before. 

 

That was practically a vacation.

 

“Why are you acting as an errand-girl today, Ino-chan~?” She asked the blonde before coming to grab her arm with a smile. 

 

Ino sighed dramatically as they began to make the path to the tower.

 

“I bumped into my dad in the tower and he blackmailed me into coming to get you.” Ino faked a pout and her pupilless eyes glittered mischievously towards Sakura. Sakura prefered taking the long way if she wasn’t in a hurry and since they had sent Ino to get her, she wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to talk to her friend.

 

“Hmm,” Sakura smirked at the blonde’s playfulness. “That must have absolutely ruined your day.” 

 

Ino giggled lightly before schooling her features again and nodding as if in grim acceptance. Then her face suddenly became mischievous. 

 

“I haven’t seen you around in a while. Wanna gossip?” Ino wiggled her eyebrows and Sakura snorted. She had almost forgotten how her friend’s mood swings were fast.

 

“Let me guess, you want to talk about Shikamaru and Temari?” Sakura smirked at Ino’s indignant squawk that she had beat her to it.

 

“You already know?” She asked and this time the pout on her full lips was real.

 

“No, Ino-chan.” Sakura patted her on the arm she was holding. “I just guessed. Tell me all the dirty details.”

 

Ino immediately launched into an enthusiastic retelling of their two friends’ love story. Sakura smiled at her and let herself be swept away from her troubles by her friend’s bubbly personality. Her crazy schedule was taking its toll on her and she hadn’t even come close to seeing Ino since Lee’s party, about a month ago. Sakura focused on her story.

 

Apparently, Shikamaru and Temari had been keeping in contact through letters ever since that first chunin exam they helped organise. According to Ino, some innocent kissing had happened back then and she thought for a while that the two of them were dating. But years passed and they never really defined their relationship, leaving Ino completely confused. Then after Lee’s party, they had sex for the first time and proceeded to ignore each other for the next few days. 

 

Sakura raised her scarred eyebrow at Ino’s complete lack of discretion about someone else’s sex life but didn’t question it. She had noticed that her friends from the Academy had gone from their exploring phase and entered the next one where they adopted the carefree attitude towards sex that most shinobi had. It wasn’t something to discuss while having dinner with the clan heads and funnily enough just a couple of them had even had it before but they all pretended it was something they were used to while chatting between themselves.

 

Sakura personally thought it was a weird phase for them all. They had much more liberty and responsibility, especially after becoming chunin, but they were still so young in her eyes. Shikamaru had a curfew , for fuck’s sake. And none of them had experienced even half of what Sakura had gone through. 

 

She found herself less able to connect with them as time went by, especially the clan kids. Sakura felt awful just even thinking about it, but she couldn’t help what she felt. The truth was that they were sheltered and Tenten, while an excellent friend and the one she could relate to the most, wasn’t exactly the type of person to go out of her way to incite a girl’s night out.

 

It was a bit sad to realise that while Sakura was sure they cared for her and she for them, they didn’t quite fit together anymore. Still, it wasn’t like she was lonely. She had found her place and was increasingly content with who she was.

 

Ino’s chatter brought her back to attention.

 

“So it turns out they had been terrified to catch feelings while living in different villages and totally freaked out after that night.” Ino flipped her long hair behind her shoulder with a graceful flick of her wrist. “And they’re not just anyone, right? I mean, Temari is in the Suna council and the Kazekage’s older sister and Shika is the Nara heir. Talk about complicated.”

 

“So they’re not dating?” Sakura clarified.

 

“I mean, they were definitely getting it on before she left this week.” Ino snickered. “It’s ridiculous that they thought they were being sneaky about it. But, anyway, they decided to just stay friends.”

 

“That makes sense.” Sakura nodded and stopped when Ino did to window shop. “Less chance of either of them getting hurt.”

 

“I don’t know,” Ino said when they returned to their path. “I think it would have been super romantic, you know? Star-crossed lovers, having to overcome the obstacles to be together.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and huffed a laugh.

 

“This is real life, Ino, not a romance novel.” Sakura ignored the frown on her friend’s face and continued. “And we’re not talking about just any obstacles here. You said it yourself, they both have serious duties to their villages and clans and that comes first for any shinobi worth their salt.”

 

Sakura kept walking and not looking at Ino but she could see her gaping incredulously at her from the corner of her eyes.

 

“Are you—” Ino scoffed— “Are you serious? What happened to the Sakura that believed in love? The Sakura that thought she could help Sasuke-kun by loving him?”

 

“Do you want me to still be in love with Sasuke?” Sakura shot her friend a look and Ino quickly backtracked. 

 

“No, of course not. I just didn’t think you’d turn out this cynical about love.” Ino shrugged, making Sakura sigh.

 

“I’m not cynical, Ino.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “I’m practical. Love in real life isn’t really like it is in romance novels. That doesn’t mean it’s not powerful, just that not everything is about love, is it? At least not in the sense of romance.”

 

“I guess…” Ino muttered but Sakura could see that she was still a bit thrown off by Sakura’s dry assessment. 

 

It’s not that she had given up on loving and being loved. It’s just that she had learned that, sometimes, love wasn’t enough. Sakura tried to change the subject, so as not to upset her friend any further. Before she could think of something to say, though, Ino turned towards her with a teasing smile.

 

“So, Sakura-chan.” She wiggled her eyebrows a bit. “Want to tell your best friend why the most important people in the village are looking for a meeting with you?”

 

“Most important people?” Sakura asked. She thought she was being summoned for a meeting with Tsunade.

 

“Dad said Hokage-sama was calling you but it’s a meeting with the Council.” Ino raised an eyebrow at her, suddenly more reticent. “Is this about… you know, you wearing a mask?”

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes and tried to see if anyone was paying attention to them. There were more people now that they were on the main street towards the Tower but everyone was minding their own business. Sakura sighed.

 

“Ino.” She raised an eyebrow at the blonde. “You can’t bring this up like this in the middle of the street.”

 

“Everyone knows or at least suspects it, Sakura-chan.” Ino was giving her such a worried look that Sakura felt her stomach tighten. She didn’t want to make her worry. “I told my dad that I was worried about you… I asked him if he didn’t have enough say to pull you out of it.”

 

“You what?!” Sakura exclaimed in a whispered cry. “Ino! I’m okay where I am. Honestly!”

 

“Sakura…” Ino looked surprised at her outburst, if not a bit scared. Sakura reeled her emotions in and took a deep breath. “You haven’t really hung out with anyone for quite a while. We barely even see you.”

 

“I went to Lee’s party!” Sakura tried to be calm but it still came out more accusatory than she wanted to.

 

“That was last month. And before that, no one had really spent more than a few minutes with you for months ,” Ino countered, making Sakura frown.

 

They were almost at the tower now and the ninja influx was higher so Sakura tried to keep her voice down and cut the conversation short. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore but she knew that it was mostly because there was a piece of truth to what Ino was saying that she didn’t quite know how to deal with.

 

The truth was that she had distanced herself from her friends. It wasn’t anything intentional but it still happened. Sakura felt more comfortable with her routine of barely having time to worry about social obligations than she did when she was constantly trying to fit in when she was at the Academy. 

 

She loved the Rookies dearly and would most likely always consider them friends but she found herself holding back whenever she was with them. None of them could understand her like Genma did, like her teammates and even her students and subordinates did. And she was just so busy . If she tried to find more time to fit the Rookies into her schedule she would surely break. 

 

There was a war brewing in the distance and Sakura knew she’d be at its centre when it came. She had to be ready.

 

“Ino-chan,” Sakura tried to give her friend a reassuring smile, “I’m okay. You don’t need to worry about me.” 

 

Ino didn’t look convinced but they had already made their way inside the tower and the ninja influx was too high for them to keep having a private conversation. The blonde gave her a sad little smile that made Sakura’s chest tighten.

 

“I have to meet my team at the missions desk.” Ino gave her a hug that felt like she was trying to break her in half and whispered in her ear, “I love you.”

 

Sakura stood frozen for a second, not really knowing how to react. She couldn't remember the last time someone had said that they loved her. Tsunade, while someone she would gladly call family, wasn't exactly the touchy feely type, and Sakura had grown to be just like her. She tried a bit harder to remember and came up with a blank. How depressing. 

 

Sakura shook herself out of her thoughts and hugged Ino back. It’s not like she wasn’t loved. She had Ino, Tsunade and Genma. She had her pack. She didn’t feel alone.

 

“Love you too.” Sakura gave Ino a bright smile and shooed her slightly with her hands when they parted. “Now, go! We both have meetings to get to.”

 

She left Ino at the mission desk floor and continued up until she reached her shishou’s office, the frown on her face growing with every step she took. Now that Ino wasn’t there to distract her, Sakura could properly think about what was happening. What reason could the council have to summon her?

 

With a quick check, Sakura saw that they were all inside. She paused to take a deep centring breath and fixed her face into a look of polite detachment before going in.

 

“Good, you’re here,” Tsunade said from behind her desk. “We can take a break from all this nonsense.”

 

Four plushy chairs were placed two on either side of the Hokage’s desk, creating a semicircle. Homura and Koharu to one side and Shikaku and Inoichi to the other. Sakura nodded at them all politely, ignoring the Elder’s look of barely veiled contempt. Old fuckers.

 

“This isn’t nonsense, Godaime,” Koharu said, her wrinkled cheeks growing red. “The Hokage should always listen to what the noble clans have to say and Hyuga-sama is right—“

 

“Hyuga is throwing a tantrum over nothing,” Shikaku boldly interrupted the Elder and Sakura raised an eyebrow at his curt tone of voice. “The Council was created to assist the Hokage in protecting Konoha in the best way they can, it has never undermined the importance of the noble clans inside the village. The fact that the Council is growing in numbers doesn’t change that.”

 

Homura seemed to be gearing up to speak but Sakura interrupted the discussion with a polite clear of her throat. Tsunade’s eyebrow was twitching like mad and Sakura knew she wasn't too far off from an outburst.

 

“How can I help you today, Shishou?” Sakura said and watched with distant amusement as Tsunade visibly took a deep breath.

 

“The Elders have brought to the Council’s attention that it’s unbecoming of one of the great noble clan’s heirs to be hidden away in ANBU.” Sakura fought the urge to narrow her eyes at her shishou, not liking at all where this was going. “I believe the words used were “improper” and “unwise”. So the Council has decided to pull you back from ANBU’s active roster. Partially.” 

 

“Partially?” Asked Homura, a frown so deep in his face it looked like it would never go back to normal.

 

“I won’t stop Sakura’s work at the workshops, that would be stupid,” Tsunade said curtly, her patience clearly at its end. “Nor will I retire her from her duties at sixteen . That would obliterate her career. Surely that’s not what you were suggesting I do.” Tsunade raised an imperious eyebrow at him. 

 

“The girl is an excellent medic, is she not?” Koharu said, raising her chin in defiance. “I believe it’s more than appropriate for her to work her way up the Hospital’s ranks. She could even become director one day, if she wanted.”

 

Inner pushed all thoughts of violence forcibly to the back of her mind. The old crone wanted to bury her under hospital work. She didn’t know they had felt this threatened by her being turned into the Senju heir. Why now? What had changed? Sakura fought hard not to ball her hands into fists and kept her placid expression firmly in place. She couldn’t, however, keep quiet.

 

“I’m a combat medic.” Sakura kept her voice level but the coldness in it was clearly noticeable as was the unconscious narrowing of her eyes. “I’m at the beginning of my career, I belong in the field.”

 

“Sakura is right and my word is final.” Tsunade seemed to finally have had enough. She got up from her chair and waved one hand to the door before turning her back on them and moving to the window behind her desk. “We can schedule another meeting later, I have a lot of work to do. Sakura, stay.” 

 

For a second, it looked like the Elders would protest further but they decided against it and left, muttering angrily between each other all the way to the door. Inoichi lingered by the door as Shikaku turned to look at Tsunade’s back.

 

“You made them angrier,” he observed calmly. 

 

Tsunade simply shot him a glare before turning back to look out the window.

 

“You’re dismissed. ” 

 

The two men spared her goodbyes before leaving but Sakura didn’t answer them. Now that she felt safer, she was positively shaking with anger. She ran her hands through her loose bangs and paced in front of her shishou’s desk for a while before forcibly expelling the air in her lungs. 

 

Sakura felt her chakra roll angrily inside her belly and the concerned response the chakra signals outside the window emitted. She had forgotten today was Team Ro’s turn at the Hokage Platoon. 

 

It seemed Tsunade was just reminded of the fact as well, because she quickly moved to her desk and activated the privacy seal there. 

 

“Fuck,” Sakura exhaled, fingers scratching at her bare forehead and catching at her scar. 

 

Tsunade came around the table and placed both hands on her shoulders.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said and Sakura couldn’t quite look her in the eyes so she focused her gaze on the diamond in the middle of her forehead.

 

“What about my team?” Sakura asked, her voice wooden.

 

“They’ll keep their same schedule, mostly taking shifts at my Platoon and you’ll still be sent to any mission that requires their expertise outside the village,” Tsunade assured her. “Their plan to undermine you backfired. Wonderfully. ”

 

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked with a confused tilt of her head.

 

Tsunade’s lips turned into a small but nonetheless fierce smile that made hope blossom in Sakura’s chest.

 

“I need you being seen , girl. If something happens to me, it’s up to you to continue fighting this war and we need to build up your reputation for that.” Tsunade squeezed her shoulders and the feeling echoed inside Sakura’s heart. She didn’t even want to think about Tsunade dying.

 

“But, Shishou…” Sakura sighed slightly. “ANBU is great for my career.”

 

“I know you like it there, brat, but I need you making a name for yourself out here in the light as well. I’ll put you on as many missions with other jounin as possible, see if we can get your name in other Bingo Books other than Suna’s.” Seeing the dejected look Sakura couldn’t quite hide, Tsunade patted her on the arm. She used to pat her on the head but Sakura had long since grown taller than her and she had a feeling Tsunade hated that fact. 

 

“I guess…” Sakura pursed her lips. She wasn’t pouting . Just expressing how inconvenient this all was. She liked ANBU, goddamn it, she didn’t want to leave.

 

“I’m not forcibly retiring you from the shadow corps, brat,” Tsunade said, affection clear in her voice making Sakura smile slightly. “Besides, you’re going to be taking missions as a jounin who has experience leading ANBU teams. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.”

 

Sakura was sure she was right. She would be coming back to the regular forces with a much different status than she had before. It certainly would be a good idea to start making a name for herself.

 

Despite feeling less discouraged than when she first got the news, Sakura couldn’t help the feeling deep in her stomach, like something heavy had settled over it. The war in the distance was looking closer every day. 

 

Notes:

Senzen means the period before war. *wink*

Sooo what did you think? About Sakura's lil tantrum, give the girl a break okay? In my opinion this is a girl-woman that is naturally very emotional but has been suppressing her emotions way too much over the course of the last 3-ish years. She's gotten good at it, it's second nature by now to let Inner hide the things she doesn't want to show but everyone has their breaking point. Add hormones, continuous stress and sleep deprivation to it and we get a tantrum. Also, keep in mind that Sakura would never have reacted like that in front of just anyone. It was an important scene to show how comfortable she feels around the people in that room, even Toshio.

I don't know if it was clear, but Sakura has been training with the pack for the last month. Yeah, I wanted to show a bit of that but I don't want to drag on these last few months before the hugeass time skip and I figured chapter 27 was enough. Sakura is reaching a bit of a plateau on her abilities, she still has a lot of growing up and learning in the fic but for a while this is as far as she gets. I feel like we've seen her climbing the ranks and developing her skills at an alarming rate and now it's time for her to chill a bit, put those skills to use, get used to working with the pack and shit.

You guys I'm so SOOO close to the best part of the fic I can almost taste it but like.... I just can't seem to reach it lol. I think the next chapter will finally FINALLY be the last one before the timeskip. If all goes well and the characters don't rebel against me like they normally do, next chapter will be a roller coaster of emotions, lot's of new developments and TIME. SKIPPED.

That being said... I... maybe... won't update next week...? I'm still not sure, it's just that I suddenly have so much on my plate bc of the end of semester and I didn't write ANYTHING this week so I have a grand total of zero words for next chapter. I was sooo close to completing a two month streak but, yeah, RL sucks. Who knows, if you guys give me lots of great wonderful comments I may just find the time to post chapter 30 next week.... Just kidding. (Or am I?) No, no pressure.

If you guys didn't notice, I changed my username! Remember that project we talked about in a P.S a while ago? Well, I decided to move that forward. So, yeah, that has been on my mind a lot lately. You guys can now find me virtually anywhere by this username (twitter, tumblr, twitch, youtube, instagram) and follow me! I'm currently only active on Tumblr but pretty soon will bring new stuff to all platforms. I'm pretty fucking excited.

Anyway, enough A/N for now. I love you guys so much! Thank you for all the support you've been giving me, it makes me feel less alone during these fucked up times. I hope we can connect further soon :)

Stay safe,

J

Chapter 30: Two Years Gone By

Notes:

Hiya!! Can we all just pretend it's still Friday? And by Friday I mean FIRE FRIDAY because the people have spoken and I have listened. Hehe I'm a dork and I love you all.

This chapter was titled in my drafts as Bad Idea Ch30! with the exclamation point Because! Holy shit, we're in chapter THIRTY.

An alternative title for this chapter is "Everyone, Listen Up. It's Been Two Years." or "The Chapter in Which the Author Writes Different Scenes All of Them Six Months Apart. Roughly." As always, a huge shotout to my wonderful Beta, A, who keeps me sane during this wild journey. Much love, bro.

Beware the time skips ;)

 

Sakura stretched lazily, slowly going from unconscious to wakefulness in a way that was almost foreign. Usually, immediately after waking up, she was instantly awake but now it took a few seconds longer for her to realise she wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t even on a bed, exactly, but instead on a futon on a tatami floor. 

 

Now completely awake, Sakura moved her legs to get up but failed miserably when it became clear they were entangled with someone else’s. She turned to her left to see long dark hair, the silky white skin of a chiselled chest and a familiar face. Hyuga Neji.

 

Oh.

 

She had forgotten about the night before. They had just come back from a mission with Anko and Mozuku to Iwa and after giving their report and stopping home to shower, had made their way to the Rusty Kunai for the customary post-jounin-mission get together. Anko had drunk Mozuku under the table and then proceeded to pass out on top of Gai a few tables over, leaving Sakura alone with Neji.

 

It wasn’t exactly surprising to Sakura that they had gotten to where they were. Out of all of the Konoha 11, Neji was the one she could relate to the most in some senses. Both their experiences as jounin were similar and even though their circumstances were vastly different, they both had to deal with a lot of family drama and learn how to break out of the mould set for them. Granted, Sakura had done her part of breaking free a bit more effectively but estranging herself from her parents wasn’t something she could really be proud of, even if she didn’t exactly regret it.

 

Sex with Neji had been… unexpected. The boy was usually so anal about everything in his life that she had half expected that she would have to take the lead lest the night be completely boring. But he had surprised her with a dominant side that seemed completely at odds with his personality. He hadn’t been a virgin in any form but what he lacked in experience he more than made up with diligence.

 

Sakura allowed a small smirk to form on her lips while she quietly got up and gathered her things. Dawn was close and she knew that it would become progressively harder to leave the Hyuga compound undetected the longer she took. With a last look to where Neji laid naked, Sakura left. 

 

She rushed to the outer walls in a quick shunshin and jumped them easily before landing softly on her feet on the other side. And came face to face with a man.

 

In her slightly hungover state, it took her a while to recognise the man in front of her but when she did, she could only blink at him.

 

“Keiichi.”

 

Sakura blinked again and watched as comprehension slowly dawned on her student’s handsome face. She was sure she looked like a mess with unbound hair, wrinkled clothes and bleary eyes. Sakura was also sure she had a hickey on her neck.

 

“Wolf-sensei!” Keiichi exclaimed, red rapidly blossoming across his pale cheeks.

 

“Shh!” Sakura hissed playfully, completely amused at his embarrassment. “It’s Sakura out here, yeah?”

 

“Sakura-taichou!” He gulped and Sakura waved at him with a cheery smile before starting to move away.

 

“You continue your patrol, I’ll see you around!” She jumped on the nearest tree. “Ja!” 

 

Her ANBU workshops had continued only with longer periods of time between lessons. Sakura had felt the loss of working exclusively in the shadow ranks acutely but her missions so far hadn’t been dull like she had half expected them to be. Her last mission certainly was eventful.

 

Sakura entered her house through her bedroom balcony and immediately went to shower. She got ready for the day as she normally would and headed downstairs for breakfast before it was even seven in the morning. Tsunade was drinking tea on their kitchen table.

 

“You didn’t come home last night.” Tsunade smirked at her with tired eyes and Sakura rolled hers in response before moving to get her own breakfast and tea. “So? Who was it?”

 

“It’s someone who’s none of your nosy business, that’s who,” Sakura answered and huffed when Tsunade stole her toast in retaliation.

 

“C’mon, brat, the most fun I had this week was betting against myself how long it would take for that Koharu hag to notice I was drunk during our meetings.” Tsunade rolled her eyes and pouted around her bite of stolen toast. “You went on an extremely complex mission and didn’t sleep in your own bed on your first night here, there has to be some kind of gossip there.”

 

Sakura drank her tea thoughtfully. She wouldn’t exactly call the mission extremely complex. Layered, maybe. Exciting, definitely. 

 

Their four-man team had been sent to Iwa to find out what kind of information a group of rogues had on one of the Fire daimyo’s richer lords. Although Anko was the more experienced one, Sakura had a higher rank so she had ultimately taken the lead on the mission. Leading a team of jounin was certainly different than leading her ANBU team but she had adapted and made sure to take Anko’s years of expertise into account. 

 

It was total bullshit that the woman hadn’t been made team captain just because she was a tokubetsu jounin but Sakura knew that Tsunade likely had no choice but to push for it. The whole reason for taking her out of ANBU was so that she could be seen as a worthy heir to the Senju line and that wouldn’t be possible if her name wasn’t being shown on mission reports. It still was bullshit and Sakura felt bad for Anko. 

 

The mission, however, had been great. They had followed their intel to their compound then waited until they could single out the leader in his usual pub where Sakura had used her training with Team Ro to seduce him and get him alone. Then, Anko and Mozuku had taken over, performing a bout of on-field interrogation that looked like art to Sakura’s eyes and discovering the information the group had was deadly to the lord’s business and reputation.

 

So they waited just before dawn to obliterate the compound with the help of Kaede. As usual, Kaede and Sakura had left the place dripping blood, but long had gone the days where that had bothered her. Although the sight of her had made both Neji and Mozuku slightly green and made a smirk appear on Anko’s face. 

 

Sakura thought sadly that she already missed working with her team. It had only been a couple of months but she had barely seen any of them and even though her missions so far had been okay, she really missed them. With a resolute nod of her head that made Tsunade raise her eyebrows at her, Sakura promised herself that she would get the group together at least twice a month to get shitfaced together.

 

Then, she let herself be the tiniest bit excited for what was to come.

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Sakura stretched her arms over her head and cracked her neck before moving back to where her team had made camp, Kaede trotting silently at her side. It had felt weird to sleep through the day before making their way through the sand at night but it was a necessary evil both to avoid detection and to conserve their energies. They were very much in the middle of the desert during summertime. 

 

Six months had gone by and Sakura had mostly stopped taking only missions with rookie jounin and tokujo. She was seeing Team Ro much less than she wanted to but they had continued to be heavily involved in dealings inside the village so it was fine to meet up once in a while even if Sakura barely had time for that. She had stayed in the village maybe a few weeks in all this time.

 

“There she is, our own Sakura-hime,” yelled Kiba when she came into view, “ The Red Wolf of Konoha .”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and sighed deeply before accepting the rations he offered her. This mission had been commissioned by the Kazekage himself to help eliminate a gang of rogue ninja from both their nations that had situated themselves smack in the middle of Wind Country territory. They were coordinating with a three-man group of Suna nin lead by Temari’s sensei, Baki, and two others that Sakura didn’t recognise.

 

Sakura was once again taking lead on a mission with people much more experienced than her, namely Inuzuka Tsume, Kiba’s mom and a Konoha tokujo. Her daughter Hana was also present and Kiba completed their four-man unit. Personally, Sakura thought it was careless to send the whole family to a dangerous mission seeing as Tsume was the clan heir and so were her children, but she didn’t argue when the woman had snarled at the Hokage.

 

“The pup needs to learn what a real battlefield looks like, he’s coming with us.” 

 

Intel wasn’t exactly good on this mission and they had estimated thirty lower to mid ranked ninja in the rogue’s camp but there was a large possibility that it would be more so the ninja and their pack had been deployed in case they needed more numbers than Suna could afford to pay for. Originally, this mission would have gone to Kakashi but he was currently working on an undercover ANBU mission in Iwa, so Sakura had been chosen to lead. 

 

She didn’t bother sitting down with her team and simply ate her rations as she walked towards where the Suna nin had situated themselves. 

 

“We have a pretty good grasp on their scent, they’re exactly ten kilometres east of here, I say we move and surround them as soon as your men have their rest.” Sakura didn’t waste any time with pleasantries and she knew Baki appreciated it by the look on his face.

 

“We leave in half an hour. You take the North, we take South?” he asked.

 

“Sounds good.” Sakura nodded and then offered him a sharp smile that was already tinted with the anticipation of a fight. “Good luck out there, Baki-san.”

 

“You too, Sakura-hime.” Baki nodded and turned before he could see the small flinch Sakura had suppressed at hearing the name.

 

The wretched nickname had spread in Konoha and, ever since they left, Kiba had called her nothing else. Coupled with the fact that Tsunade had specifically said in her letter to Gaara that she would be sending her apprentice to deal with their problem and her entry in Suna’s bingo book, the Suna nin had taken to calling her Sakura-hime or the Red Wolf much to her chagrin.

 

Sakura went back to her team and informed them of their plans after Hana forcibly snatched her mother before she could throttle Kiba for something he’d said. Kaede was eating a raw rabbit at her left as she finished up and snarled when the other’s ninken tried to approach it.

 

“Tsume-san, I want you and Kiba to take four of my summons and stay on my left when we attack. I’ll take the right side with two others and Hana-san, you’ll protect our backs and serve as support for any injuries.” Sakura explained her plan and told them what they should expect of her summon’s abilities. Hana was an expert veterinary medical nin chunin and would serve to heal her family in a pinch. 

 

“You’ll be heavily outnumbered,” Tsume said, a frown on her face. 

 

Sakura smiled slowly at the woman and felt her body hum with the prospect of a good fight. Her chakra heightened senses and the way her teammates were so feral had greatly influenced her and she felt like the lines between animal and human were blending quite dangerously in this mission. Tsume’s vertical pupils expanded and her wild hair looked more like a mane in the moonlight as she grinned back at her. 

 

“Don’t worry, Tsume-san, I can handle myself.” Sakura got up and lightly punched Kiba in the shoulder. “Ready? Let’s kick some ass so you get bragging rights when we go back home.”

 

The boy grinned at her and Akamaru barked. Kiba was at times way too loud for Sakura but she knew him to have a big heart and this mission had shown her that he had an appreciation and respect for women that was completely unexpected and further endeared him to her, so she made an effort to keep his spirits up whenever she could. The idiot reminded her of Naruto so much it hurt to think about it.

 

Sakura didn’t summon the whole pack when it was time to go. Tamotsu and Kaede would be enough to back her up and the twins, Hotaka and Kimi would have Kiba and Tsume’s back. They moved in a quick dash through the desert until they reached the rogue camp. 

 

It was bigger than they expected, definitely more than forty ninja, but Sakura could feel that the chakra signatures weren’t exactly strong, some of them could even be civilian mercenaries. They knew they couldn’t possibly sneak up with only sand around them for miles but they didn’t need the element of surprise when their skill vastly surpassed their enemy’s.

 

That wasn’t to say it had been an easy mission. Even though they had the help of their wolves and dogs, they were heavily outnumbered and some on their ranks had gotten injured. As was Suna’s policy, they left no one alive. 

 

Kiba had thrown up when the last man fell.

 

On their way back to the village, Sakura asked Tamotsu to go with them and help carry Akamaru and one of Hana’s three brothers ninken who had been injured in the battle. Kiba had been almost chakra exhausted at one point and despite Sakura having healed him, had to climb with the ninken on Tamotsu’s back for most of the way back.

 

They entered Konoha’s gates, Tsume and Hana mounted on their summons on either side of Sakura who was riding Kaede’s back and Tamotsu carrying the rest of their team. Sakura waved cheerily at Kotetsu and Izumo at the gates but didn’t pause to say hello before continuing on her way. 

 

That night, after she had said her goodbyes to her team and delivered her report, Sakura took a quick shower, left her red haori at the cleaners to get rid of the bloodstains and headed for the bar. According to her quick look at the mission roster, Team Gai had been scheduled to return that afternoon and she was sure she would be able to find— 

 

There he was. 

 

One look at Neji from across the bar was enough for him to give a slight nod and for them to come to an understanding. Sakura drank a single glass of whisky and made her way to the Hyuga compound towards the lower branch housing. Keiichi was once again patrolling the gates like he usually did whenever inside the village, but he didn’t stop her when she climbed over the wall, he simply waved and wished her a goodnight. Sakura’s laugh was tiny but it still echoed in the night.

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“Are you absolutely sure he’s in there?” Sakura asked Kaoru and the old wolf huffed in annoyance. It was a stupid question, really, there wasn’t anyone better at tracking prey through their smell as Kaoru. She silently petted his fur and thanked him through their connection.

 

She was deep into Wave territory, following a lead on a teenage boy that had run away from home. He was the heir to one of Fire’s lords and had left as soon as his father had set up an arranged marriage with a girl he didn’t know and now Sakura was following his lead into Wave. Not only that but straight into a rogue ninja compound. 

 

Whatever the fuck the boy was even doing there.

 

Sakura sighed, thanked Kaoru once again before dismissing him and summoning both Kaede and Chika. She would have to infiltrate the place right then to use the nighttime to her favour. Chika would hide Kaede and herself in a genjutsu while Sakura used her own technique that made her into a literal ghost. She would get in, take the boy by force if she had to, get the fuck out. Kaede would be there for backup if something went wrong.

 

The wolves were already hidden in Chika’s crafty genjutsu and she was just about to do the same when she felt the chakra signature behind her. It was almost too late for her to block a stray of senbon with her tanto. 

 

Sakura quickly pivoted to watch the two men in front of her. Both had blue hair but one was significantly younger than the other, around her age if she had to guess, and on his back was— 

 

It was Hiramekarei.

 

Like the good little nerd that Sakura was, she had done some extensive research on the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist after their disastrous first mission outside the village and she had made sure to catalogue everything in her head. The sword currently strapped to the boy’s back was one of the Seven Swords used by the elite group and the only one that Kiri still had in their possession. Well, that they knew off, of course, because unbeknownst to them, Team 7 had placed Kubikiribocho in an unmarked grave on one of Wave’s many shores. 

 

The blue eyed boy-man holding it could only be Chojuro of the Mist. 

 

“State your business, Konoha-nin,” the older man said, his voice firm and nonsensical and by his getup, she figured he was some type of hunter-nin. His way of dressing was close to what Haku had used, the only thing missing was the ANBU mask and in its place was a dark eyepatch. 

 

Sakura sighed at the complication and pocketed her tanto before slowly raising her hand in a cheeky wave.

 

“I don’t mean any trouble, hunter-nin-san.” She gave him her most disarming smile and was rewarded with the slightest of blushes on Chojuro’s cheeks. “I’m here on a mission to retrieve a runaway from Fire. Civvie business, I’m afraid.”

 

She didn’t question how he knew she was from Konoha even from behind, the red haori was enough giveaway. The pink hair not exactly inconspicuous either. Besides, Chojuro wasn’t just anyone in Kiri and if he was sent on a mission, it must have been important and this guy with him had probably as much importance inside the village.

 

“Why wasn’t the Mizukage informed of this?” The man’s voice wasn’t exactly snappish but it held a superiority tinged with annoyance that made her narrow her eyes slightly at him. “This little stunt of yours may cost us a very important mission.” 

 

“Ao…” Chojuro trailed off uncomfortably, shuffling his feet a bit. Ao’s face immediately soured and Sakura intervened before he could say anything.

 

“I’m assuming you’re after the rogue nin compound?” Sakura asked. “I can help you with that if you want.”

 

“This isn’t any of your business.” Ao narrowed his sole eye at her. “We don’t need help from any of Konoha’s dogs. You couldn’t take the way we do things.”

 

Sakura’s chakra spiked in response, her grin turning sharper, more threatening. She didn’t want an international incident to happen because of pettiness, though, so she tried to reel it in. Kaede, however, had other plans. From where he was still hidden with Chika, the now fully grown wolf growled and snarled in response.

 

“It’s wolf, actually,” Sakura said, her voice lower. Then she took a deep calming breath, put her hand on top of Kaede’s seemingly transparent muzzle and rolled her eyes a bit. “I don’t want a fight, okay? The reason the Mizukage wasn’t informed is because the Hokage wasn’t either. When I got this mission the boy was still in Fire Country territory and I just wanna grab him and get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. I won’t compromise your mission.”

 

“You’re the Red Wolf of Konoha, aren’t you?” Chojuro asked meekly. “The Hokage’s apprentice.”

 

Sakura smiled sweetly at him and gave him a little wave. 

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Chojuro-san.” He seemed surprised to be recognised and the little smile he gave in response made Sakura’s turn more genuine. “I can get in, grab the kid and get out without being detected. That’s if you really don’t want my help. We don’t want an international situation on our hands now, do we?”

 

“What do you mean, girl?” Ao asked and the way he said girl made her hackles rise. She didn’t give him much of a reaction, though, simply shrugged.

 

“The kid is the heir to one of our more influential lords,” she said.

 

“Oh,” Chojuro breathed and Ao cursed under his breath.

 

“We still don't need your help. You get him and get out.” Ao closed his eye for a few seconds before looking back at her. “He’s on the southern part of the compound. I’ll follow behind you to make sure nothing happens. Chojuro, you attack from the north.”

 

He was a sensor-nin, then. Neat. Even though he had basically said that he would follow her to make sure she didn’t fuck anything up, Sakura was excited to move already. She had done a few exciting missions in the six months since that joint one with Suna but most of them had been boring bodyguarding and transporting jobs that required her name on the paper. She wondered if she’d be able to get some action that night.

 

“Well, it was nice meeting you both.” She sent them a cheeky salute and then covered herself with her genjutsu, matching her chakra signature to that of a bug crawling on the forest floor. “Ja ne.”

 

Chojuro’s gasp was satisfying but more than that was the way Ao’s eye seemed to almost bug out of his head. Sakura watched as he did a few hand signs before making eye contact with her again even though she was sure he couldn’t possibly see her. With a suspicious look towards his eyepatch, Sakura moved. He was definitely hiding something.

 

The mission was boring, as she expected. She managed to get some sneaky action in, killing the sentinels she came across and the nin guarding the lord’s heir. Turns out the kid had actually been kidnapped in a port town somewhere in Wave. Idiot.

 

Sakura killed a few more of the nin on her way out, the boy unconscious and hung over her shoulder. Kaede’s howls and growls could be heard over the sound of the screaming men in the compound. It seemed fitting that it had been a full moon.

 

She was walking with the boy medically induced asleep on Kaede’s back when she realised she was close to where they had buried Haku and Zabuza. It was a quick detour in which she sent them both a quiet prayer and put Kubikiribocho on a sealing scroll before heading back to her own country. That Ao guy had seemed like a misogynist tool and if she chose to take back the famed sword as a private middle finger, no one would know. 

 

Technically, it should have been Team 7’s anyway and what Kiri never knew they had they couldn’t miss.

 

By the time Sakura got home, rumours had already reached Konoha’s gossip vine. She gave her report, changed and went to see if she could find Neji around the village for the night. When she went back to the Senju Estate the next morning, Tsunade and Shizune were waiting for her with a full breakfast and sake of all things.

 

A Mist Bingo Book laid open on their kitchen table. Ghost Wolf, S-Rank, Flee on Sight.

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Genma signalled from a tree across to where Sakura was perched on a thick branch. Five minutes until contact. Sakura immediately weaved a complex genjutsu on the road between them designed to make humans and animals alike stop in their tracks. With an annoyed sigh, she felt the chakra signatures of their babysitters flickering in response to her use of chakra.

 

Genma and Sakura had left on a two-man team to assassinate the leader of a caravan of smugglers that operated between Fire and Lightning. The Raikage had been wholly unhelpful when dealing with the thieves so when Tsunade had gotten a proposal from a lord in Lightning to assassinate the leader of the group, she had immediately sent Genma and Sakura, arguably two of the best assassins in Konoha.

 

Of course, nothing was simple. The caravan’s route was known to come very close to Kumogakure and the Raikage refused to let them anywhere near their village borders without proper surveillance. So he had sent two of his own elite to “help”.

 

Darui and C had met up with them in a ryokan near their designed assassination point and had properly blended in as civilians like Genma and Sakura had. And that was the extent of their helpfulness in the mission so far. 

 

Sakura found out she didn’t hate Darui, to her surprise. The Kumo nin was easygoing and agreeable even if he seemed to be following C’s lead on not engaging in their mission much. His personality reminded Sakura of Hideki and Misaki. Playful and light. It seemed like he had perfected the art of keeping tension from rising and that was a useful skill to have if someone had C as a partner.

 

C was a cocky bastard. 

 

Sakura was sure some people would say that he was only a serious guy who knew the extent of his abilities but she would have to strongly disagree. From the moment they had met up, he had been antagonistic. She was pretty sure he had called her a Konoha bitch at one point during a veiled conversation. 

 

It was such a pity too because he was one of the most gorgeous men Sakura had ever met with his full lips, straight nose and blond hair. Not even getting into the fact that he was a combat medic nin, a sensor type and proficient in genjutsu. The man was basically her in male form and she would never admit how much of a turn on that could be. If only he could keep his pretty mouth shut.

 

Sakura was shaken out of her reveries by the arrival of the caravan. As soon as they reached her layered genjutsu, the procession stopped. Genma and Sakura moved.

 

There weren’t many people, sixteen at most with only five of them being proficient ninja and the others merely mercenaries. Still, the ninja weren’t exactly inexperienced and Genma and Sakura would need the element of surprise to carry out their mission. 

 

Their target was inside one of the carriages, a middle aged mercenary who wasn’t exactly powerful but had a lot of money to hire rogue nin to do his dirty work. The plan was to first incapacitate the ninja before they could break out of her genjutsu and then move on. 

 

Sakura, hidden in her usual genjutsu and chakra suppression combo, watched as Genma hit one of the ninja on his vital points with senbon and moved to engage her own target. He was a young preteen, maybe ten or eleven at most. His dark skin contrasted with his light brown hair and blue eyes and Sakura felt a distant pang at having to kill someone as young as him even if he was a missing nin.

 

Sakura moved her tanto to slash at his throat but a second before she made contact, his blue eyes snapped to hers. In a move that would have been too fast for Sakura to see if she hadn't augmented her eyesight with chakra, the kid ducked under her swipe and grabbed her wielding arm in a tight fist.

 

The reaction was instant. 

 

Sakura suddenly lost all control of her chakra as if was forced back into her tenketsu. All of them. Her scream echoed in the clearing as her genjutsu dropped and she lost control of every single thing her chakra had been enhancing. 

 

Her heartbeat quickened, her muscles, eyes and nose stopped receiving stimuli and her very balance shifted. The kid used her momentary lapse to attack her with his katana and Sakura barely had any presence of mind to dodge. 

 

“Sakura!” She heard Genma scream from the other side of the road as she fell on her ass in her hurry to avoid getting her guts spilt on the floor, dropping her tanto in the process. She hadn’t been fast enough and the boy had managed a shallow gash that crossed from her hip bone to the centre of her ribs.

 

The sight of her blood spilling on the floor was so jarring. Inner was confusedly trying to access their chakra, images kept popping in her head of her first C-Ranked mission and then her first one as a chunin, Ino’s blood warm on her face. 

 

Sakura remembered suddenly what Kakashi had said during their first meeting with Haku. There were kids out there younger than what they had been at the time that were stronger than Kakashi. This boy clearly had a kekkei genkai, much like Haku did.

 

The good news was that she could use his young age to her advantage. No matter how much of a prodigy he was, he still didn’t have enough time alive to completely master his technique. Inner was already managing to at least get a feel of her chakra again, even if she couldn’t quite access it yet.

 

Sakura was still very much close to panicking. The kid was fast and Genma was on the other side of the road, quickly being overwhelmed by the other four ninja. She knew he could handle himself but by the sounds of the battle on his side, things weren’t pretty. 

 

Where the fuck are those guys? Sakura thought desperately. She couldn’t see a way out of this without having their backup take over. 

 

Sakura dodged again and again, her speed naturally faster than that of a normal civilian thanks to Lee’s training but it was no match for the boy’s chakra enhanced muscles. He was much faster than her but Sakura was the more experienced fighter and that was the only thing keeping her alive.

 

She had just managed to dodge another swipe of his katana, her tanto laid forgotten on the ground where she had dropped it, when she saw on the corner of her eyes that Genma had fallen. 

 

“Genma!!” Sakura yelled desperately, completely disregarding her fight in her rush to try and get over to him.

 

The boy had readied himself to cut off her head at the same time as the other enemy ninja raised his sword to attack Genma. In the next second, when she had already conformed herself that their babysitters were just going to watch them die, Darui parried the boy’s katana with his own at the same time C took the other ninja’s arm out with a sharp lightning jutsu.

 

Darui slit the boy’s throat without a second thought and moved to help his partner and Sakura felt fury rising inside her, making her belly churn. 

 

Inner had managed to slowly open her tenketsu back up, but the trickle was small and her control shaky. It didn’t matter because she didn’t need her chakra to deal with the mercenaries around them. Despite her injuries, Sakura moved quickly and dispatched the civilian mercenaries with a ruthlessness and aggression she hadn’t really revealed in a long time.

 

By the time she reached their intended target, she had several blood splatters on herself and the little weasel was trying to escape through the woods. Sakura relieved him of his head without blinking. 

 

When she made it back towards where she had left Genma and the others, she was panting heavily with the effort it had taken her weak form. C was healing a nasty gash on Genma’s shoulder and Darui was—he was sealing the boy’s body in a scroll.

 

“You were here for him.” It didn’t sound like her voice. It sounded more like Inner when she was showing dark things and leaking killing intent. Darui frowned at the scroll in his hands.

 

“We heard a rumour, but we weren’t sure he would be here,” he said after a beat.

 

“Were you waiting to see how good he was before helping us?” she accused in a hiss.

 

C got up from where he had crouched next to Genma and helped him up as well before turning towards her, one hand on his hip.

 

“We were ordered to only intervene if the boy tried to escape and—” C began speaking but Sakura didn’t let him finish. She stalked up to him and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, bringing his face down to her level so she could snarl at him.

 

“We almost died!” 

 

“Don’t take this personally, Sakura-hime,” C tried to appease her. “The mission directori—”

 

This time Sakura interrupted him with a fist on his face. 

 

Despite the fact that her anger wasn’t completely gone and she would like nothing more than to pummel the bastard into the ground, she didn’t go further. Darui had made no move to interfere and Genma had simply moved to her side, letting his arm brush hers comfortingly. 

 

Sakura flinched, her hand clutching around the fabric of her belly that was heavily stained with blood. She had almost forgotten about the gash there.

 

“I can heal you,” C offered, his tone more subdued as he wiped the blood from his mouth.

 

He wasn’t stupid and neither was Darui. She knew the two of them weren’t causing trouble because in fact she and Genma could have died and there was no way this would have turned out okay for Kumo. The Raikage’s most trusted ninja letting the Hokage’s apprentice and heir and one of the guards at the Hokage Platoon die on a mere technicality of a mission directory. 

 

Sakura didn’t dignify him with an answer and instead offered Genma a roll of gauze for him to help her bandage herself. She closed the haori over herself, using the extra fabric to further staunch the blood flow before wrapping the bandages around her belly like an obi. 

 

It was crude but the injury wasn’t that serious and she was sure her chakra would come back soon enough. 

 

They moved silently through the caravan turned graveyard, picking up gold and precious stones as they went and splitting everything up without talking much. Sakura had expected them to make the journey back to Kumo immediately but the duo surprised her by offering to pay for another night at the ryokan they had been staying at. 

 

Sakura shrugged her shoulders, not caring either way that Genma said yes. 

They were assholes for not stepping in earlier but they had pulled through in the end and she was sure she and Genma would have been in a whole lot of trouble if they hadn’t been there.

 

Besides, Sakura didn’t see the point in holding grudges against foreign ninja she would surely have to deal with again in the future.

 

The four of them made their way inside the ryokan through the front door, their cover as civilians properly blown. The old lady at the counter paled considerably at the sight of them and Sakura feared she would pass out but then Darui was stepping forwards with a seal from the Raikage himself and suddenly they were being ushered towards the daimyo suite, their clothes being taken to wash up so they could have fresh ones in the morning.

 

Sakura exchanged a glance with Genma, both of them now in oversized yukata provided by the ryokan. They both knew that they were being buttered up but none were eager to call the other duo out. She smiled a bit at him, glad to see he was completely okay.

 

Sakura was sure that this kind of treatment wouldn’t have been extended if it was up to the Raikage. She was glad that the man’s possible successors would be men that cared about foreign relationships a little bit more. Even if she wasn’t exactly ready to call either of them friends. They were still technically allies.

 

Sakura left the three of them to eat the banquet that was being set out for them and moved towards her private room in search of a bathroom to clean herself up. She had taken most of the blood off when she had changed into the yukata but she still felt somewhat crusty and her injury was in dire need of some proper cleaning and bandaging.

 

She hopped in and out of the shower quickly, not wanting to waste any time before she could go eat something. Standing in front of the counter, Sakura observed her injury in the mirror and tried to move her chakra to regenerate the cells there.

 

The process was slow but infinitely better than it had been a few hours ago. She had managed to clot most of the wound when she felt a chakra signature flare outside of the bathroom and then the door was opening.

 

Ah, so this is how it’s going to be, she thought and Inner smirked in the back of her mind. 

 

Sakura covered herself with the yukata just as C came into the bathroom. She raised an eyebrow at him at his lack of worry about waiting for her response before coming in but he simply shrugged, the self assured look on his face diminished but not gone.

 

“You’re going to stop being stubborn and I’m going to heal you.” C frowned at her and Sakura felt her heartbeat speed up in anticipation.

 

She wouldn’t hold a grudge, no, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still fucking pissed and even looking at his self-assured face made her stomach clench in anger. Sakura turned to look at him, a snarl on her lips tied to a curt dismissal.

 

“I don’t need your fucking help—mph!” Sakura was cut off by C’s lips crashing into hers.

 

The kiss was harsh and punishing and it took less than a second for Sakura to respond in kind. She wasn’t surprised. Despite his overall asshole-y personality, his eyes had lingered more than once and she knew what these kinds of missions meant sometimes.

 

He could be doing this to further endear her to make her forget what had happened earlier or he was simply letting himself enjoy the fact that she was someone who he wouldn’t have to see everywhere around the village and that he found attractive. Sakura didn’t care either way.

 

At the moment, he was a strong body pressing her against the counter and kissing her senseless. She had more than enough experience with these kinds of dealings outside the village to know that she could take as much as she wanted with him, no complications needed.

 

So when she noticed after he leaned back that he had gathered medical chakra in his hand, she pushed into her tiptoes, grabbed a handful of his silky blond hair and pulled him back to her. She didn’t want his healing. 

 

Sakura didn’t let him take control of this kiss and instead pushed her own tongue inside his mouth to find his before retreating just long enough to give his lower lip a bruising bite. The groan that action ripped from his throat was positively delicious. 

 

C might have been a bit of an asshole but he sure was good to look at through the mirror, pushing into her from behind and knowing exactly what he was doing. Sakura left the bathroom some time later feeling pleasantly sated and ready to eat and then pass out. She had let him heal what was left of her wound after all and she couldn’t help but think that the look of surprise on his face when he noticed that she had mostly healed herself had brought her great joy.

 

She woke up early the next morning, before the sun had even risen on the horizon. She made her way to Genma’s room and quietly ruffled through his things before she found a crumpled pack of cigarettes at the bottom of his pack.

 

Genma wasn’t one to smoke often but he always kept a pack in his mission things in case he needed a cover as a civilian, his oral fixation always taking the better of him and the extra bout of nicotine a nice reprieve every once in a while. 

 

Sakura opened his door leading outside and quickly climbed the roof, immensely glad her chakra had gone back to normal. She had only taken a few drags of the cigarette before Genma hoisted himself up to join her.

 

“Had fun tasting the foreign fruit, Petal?” Genma smirked at her and Sakura snorted, shaking her head slightly before offering him a drag.

 

“He was acceptable.” She shrugged and gave him a wink when he laughed and passed the cigarette back after indulging.

 

Genma yawned and scrubbed his hand on his face before sliding them up to collect his hair into a short ponytail. Sakura hadn’t bothered with any type of getting ready before going there and she didn’t even want to take a glance at a mirror at the moment. 

 

She stubbed out the cigarette on the roof tile beside her and leaned her head on his shoulder. Genma brought her closer and the two of them sighed quietly.

 

“We almost died.” Admitting it somehow didn’t bring as much anxiety as she had expected.

 

“Yeah,” Genma agreed. He took a senbon from somewhere and placed it between his teeth.

 

“We were careless.” Sakura sighed. They should have asked for more information on the ninja guarding the caravan before following through with the mission. She didn’t know if they had been cocky or just unlucky but someone with a lesser level and experience than them would have probably prepared themselves better for this mission. 

 

“No use thinking about it now, Blossom.” He shrugged a bit, dislodging her from her place briefly before pulling her closer. “It’s over, we’re alive. You got your ‘hurray-I-didn’t-die’ bout of sex so when we go home I expect you to be a nice wingwoman and get me someone to say ‘hurray’ for me, deal?”

 

Sakura laughed, something in her heart unclenching as they sat there together and watched the sun rise.

 

Their conversation turned towards their friends back home and the latest gossip they had to catch each other up on. Sakura had been spending more time outside the village ever since she started taking mostly jounin missions a year and a half ago. She usually managed to get around five days inside in which she trained, taught at the workshops and tried to meet up with her friends but things were busy. 

 

Whispers of the Akatsuki had been growing more and more across the nations and everyone was in high alert. Being in such important positions, she hadn’t seen a single strand of Kakashi’s hair in about a year. Their schedules always pushed in different directions. 

 

She made a point to always water Mr. Ukki and clean out his fridge whenever she could, sometimes even leaving some dog treats on his counter. It wasn’t much but she knew it was appreciated whenever she found a new pack of exploding tags or senbon with a henohenomoheji scribbled on them on top of her dresser when she came back from missions.

 

With the Akatsuki being so openly active lately, Sakura wondered if it wouldn’t be smarter to bring Naruto back home. They weren’t so spread thin anymore six months shy of four years after the Konoha Crush. The village was beginning to prosper once again, they had the means and the money to survive an attack. 

 

She wished Tsunade managed to convince the council that bringing him back now would be the best alternative. There was also the fact that they had an impending Uchiha problem just waiting to happen. 

 

Sasuke had probably some more training time before moving to kill Itachi but if it was up to Sakura, they’d have contacted the older Uchiha ages ago. Tsunade was trying to play it safe, keeping her hand close to herself when it came to Danzo but, while Sakura agreed with that, Uchiha Itachi was still a Konoha nin that had been abandoned by his village long enough. 

 

She wanted to help him. And she wanted to bring Sasuke home.

 

Sakura closed her eyes, feeling the soft sunshine on her skin and thinking about how much it reminded her of Naruto. She sighed, a sad smile spreading across her lips. She hoped Team 7 could reunite soon.

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura was weaving her fingers expertly through her long hair, meticulously braiding it, when Tsunade burst into her room. She harrumphed loudly, almost petulantly, before letting her body fall backwards on top of Sakura’s newly acquired settee. She had wanted a cosy reading corner for quite sometime and had finally managed to find some time to go shopping for it with Ino the week before.

 

“I’m late already,” Sakura said, looking at her master through the mirror. “I won’t help you with any more work today.”

 

“The elders are driving me crazy!” she exclaimed and Sakura snorted when she rolled her eyes. “And that incredibly stupid Hyuga Hiasi is butthurt that a Nara and a Yamanaka hold so much power. You really shouldn’t be shacking up with one of those stuck-ups, pasty-eyed bastards.”

 

“Shishou.” Sakura rolled her eyes. Tsunade never really had a problem with her seeing Neji for the past five months or so. She asked once if they were dating and Sakura had just raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t simple like that.

 

Sakura had with Neji what she liked to think as a mutually beneficial partnership where they each took care of the other’s needs, mostly when they’d just come back from missions. He was a nice distraction and thoroughly exhausted her whenever she needed to shut down after a particularly brutal mission. 

 

She liked him, that much was obvious to her. He was ridiculously pretty and made her feel great with the way he worshipped her body. Even though they had first hooked up around two years ago, it had only been a little over five months since they had made their interactions a more constant thing.

 

Things with him were easy and they were light and just what she needed.

 

“That annoying Hyuga brat is going to side with the Elders because I didn’t put anyone from his clan on the Council.” Tsunade stretched out further and glared at the ceiling. 

 

Sakura knew she had been working nonstop since that night they spent awake planning and plotting and scheming. Shizune had taken some of the load off her shoulders, taking full responsibility for the hospital and Sakura helped where she could when she wasn’t on a mission but still. It was a lot to take on. She turned to her shishou with a determined expression.

 

“Look, start spreading the word that Shikaku-sama was chosen because of his position as Jounin Commander and Inoichi-ojisan because he’s head of Intelligence.” She bit her lip in thought and looked away when she felt Tsunade’s heavy gaze on her. “Maybe you can put Ibiki-san next, to throw their scents off… And Toshio next. Make their place at the Council a staple to whoever occupies those positions.”

 

“Maybe…” Tsunade had a faraway look on her face when Sakura looked back at her.

 

With a decisive nod, Sakura turned around to strap her pouches on. The idea was planted and now was the time to let her shishou decide what she wanted to do with it.

 

“Also,” Sakura threw over her shoulder as an afterthought, “maybe it’s time Hyuga Hiashi be reminded that the Hokage is deliberately choosing to overlook the slavery going on inside his clan.”

 

It was a risky move, that’s for sure. Tsunade was beginning to get on the elder’s nerves and she still had a lot of work cut out for her but they had a goal to make their village a better place and they had to stay firm on the path towards it. Sakura smiled softly at her shishou when their eyes met and she saw something like pride shining in them. They would do what was right. Together.

 

For now, though, there wasn’t much Sakura could do so she winked at the older woman and prepared to leave only for Tsunade to stop her.

 

“I need you to report for a briefing tomorrow. 0600 at Usui’s office.” Tsunade frowned at the ceiling. “We have some Akatsuki rumours that we need to do some digging on. It’ll probably be a two-part mission, one with Team Ro and then another jounin-only squad.”

 

Sakura frowned at Tsunade. A two tiered mission like that only meant one thing. They’d be working on the shadows to discover information for a mission that had to be seen in the light. 

 

“A jounin-only squad? That seems important.” Sakura cocked her head at her shishou and the older woman sighed heavily before getting up.

 

“We won’t know much until Team Ro does their digging but if it is what we think it is, we’re putting a few squads to handle it. I want you to be on the jounin team.”

 

“Who else do you have geared up to go?” Sakura asked, wondering already if she should cancel her night with Neji.

 

“For the jounin team I want you to work with Kakashi and Asuma. The ANBU unit is up to Usui, they’ll probably serve as backup.” Tsunade squeezed her shoulders and shook her playfully a bit before shooing her with her hands. “Now go along, don’t worry about this for now. Tomorrow you get that big brain of yours working, tonight you do a different type of workout.”

 

Sakura barked a laugh and winked goodbye at her shishou before disappearing in a shunshin. 

 

By the time she got to the Hyuga compound, she was already really late. Neji was supposed to be back from his solo A-rank at sundown and it was already a few hours post that. No matter , Sakura smirked, she would make up for it. 

 

Sakura gave Keiichi a cheeky wave as she climbed the wall, wondering idly if he’d be on her team in the morning. With a slight shake of her head, Sakura shook any thoughts of missions away. She would focus on the night ahead of her and nothing else.

 

Sakura climbed through his window silently, her chakra half suppressed as always. The shower was running and steam was coming out of the door. It was left slightly open and she knew it was because he wanted her to join him.  

 

His hair ran down his back like silk, his head hung as he leaned his arms against the wall. Still without making a sound, Sakura began to strip languorously as she appreciated his water slicked muscles.

 

There was a large gash on his thigh and her hand went immediately towards it when she stepped up behind him, her chakra mingling with his as she coached the cells there to regenerate. Neji sighed softly and leaned back against her minutely.

 

“You’re late.” His voice was soft and deep and it sent a shiver down Sakura’s spine.

 

“Hmm,” she hummed against the skin of the back of his neck. “I’m pretty sure Shishou keeps sending you to these long missions just to get back at me for that one time I managed to punch her in the gut,” Sakura snickered as she finished healing his wound. 

 

There was a tiny smile on his face when he turned his head to look at her, something soft on his milky white eyes that made her chest feel warm. She reached up slightly to kiss him on his cheek and stayed there as she whispered against it.

 

“Let me make it up to you.”

 

It was easy to let her hand slip from the outside of his thigh towards the inside and slide it up, up, up until she heard the hitch of his breath and felt his suppressed groan through his back.

 

Sakura woke up naked with Neji’s arm around her waist, pulling her closer when she shifted away. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. She was starting to feel a bit restless, having someone so close to her like that, but it still felt good in some ways.

 

“What time do you have to leave?” He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and Sakura hummed appreciatively. She opened her eyes again to check the position of the moon.

 

“An hour,” she sighed.

 

With that reminder, she gently disentangled herself from him and got up. She ran through a couple of stretches, enjoying how his gaze felt heavy on her skin before cracking her neck and started to put her clothes back on. She had her normal black clothes and red haori combo she usually wore around the village on and she was just finishing up tying her braid when Neji spoke.

 

“Do you think I could make it into ANBU?” His voice was hesitant in a way Sakura rarely heard it be and when she turned to look at him, Neji was resting with his hands behind his head, his gaze unfocused on the ceiling.

 

She knew where he was coming from. 

 

While both of them had climbed the ranks faster than any of their friends, Neji felt he was being held back. In a way, it was true.

 

Gai had been against him taking the jounin test and Sakura had her suspicions that he was keeping Neji busy within his team so he didn’t venture into more dangerous jounin-only missions. 

 

Even though she understood his frustrations, Sakura couldn’t help but think how lucky he was to have someone worry about him like that. Team Gai was truly a family even though Neji tried to distance himself from them sometimes.

 

Sakura smiled softly at him. She kneeled at his side on his futon and bent so she could kiss him slowly.

 

“I think,” she whispered against his lips, “you have a great team and that you accomplish great things together.”

 

“I could be more useful at the—” Sakura stopped him with her lips, kissing him more thoroughly so when she leaned back his cheeks were flushed.

 

“Your abilities are great for the shadow corps, that’s true, but the teamwork you have with Team Gai is what the village really needs.” She paused. “There’s a reason we’re put in such specific genin teams, Neji. ANBU is made for people like me. Don’t throw what you have away.”

 

Neji sat up, one of his hands grabbing gently at her elbow, his brows furrowed.

 

“I’m sorry.” His voice was quiet and his face, while still flushed, was so worried Sakura felt something warm settle on her chest.

 

“Don’t be,” she said simply.

 

She was happy that he could have a family in Team Gai when his own family situation was so shitty. Even though they weren’t dating in the traditional sense of the word, Sakura cared about Neji. 

 

ANBU had been great for her but she was a hundred percent sure it was because she fell on Team Ro and Genma had made the effort to not make her feel alone. The fact that Toshio had kind of taken her under his wing as well had helped a lot. To be honest, Sakura missed working in ANBU as much as she did a couple of years back.

 

The jounin missions she took were almost never with the same team and quite often she was alone with her pack in high ranked solo missions. Sakura missed working with a unit that knew how she operated and could anticipate her moves because of countless missions taken together.

 

Sakura left soon after and before she made her way back home to quickly change into her ANBU uniform, she stopped at the Cenotaph. 

 

She thought back to the day over four years ago that she had stood before the shiny stone and settled her nindo. She had been filled with despair, feeling completely alone and left behind. 

 

How things have changed, she thought.

 

Sakura’s eyes followed the carved characters on the stone familiarly. She stood before the memorial that day completely sure she had been doing everything in her power to follow through with her nindo. She had gotten stronger so she could protect her friends and ended up taking the village’s future into her hands in the process.

 

The feelings of abandonment had dulled over the years but her earlier thoughts triggered by what Neji had said still echoed in her head. Sakura missed having a team. She missed Team 7. Hell, she missed Team Ro even though they weren’t officially disbanded. 

 

With a heavy sigh, she gave Inner all of her unhappy thoughts to put away in little boxes. Sakura stretched her arms over her head and did a few silly jumps to loosen up her limbs. She smiled sadly at the memorial stone one last time and shunshined towards HQ.

 

She had a mission to get to.

 

Notes:

I gotta be honest, I didn't think I'd manage to write all of this in just one chapter. Lol, it kept happening throughout the fic like, I'd think on a scene I really wanted to happen, then I'd sit down and write down in my notebook all the things that had to happen so I could get there and suddenly I had 30 chapters of character/world building and was nowhere near to what I had intended to write in the first place. This timeskip was supposed to have happened a few chapters after Sakura found out about the Uchiha Massacre. At the most.

Anyway, I regret nothing.

I know a lot of people don't read my hugeass AN all the way through (deadass don't blame them, they're ridiculously long and oftentimes pointless and filled with tmi) but I thought I'd do a lil something for the ones that do endure haha So, if you guys have any prompts to give me, I'd be more than happy to write a drabble or short one-shot about it! Just leave it in the comment section and I'll choose one or two! Thank you so much for sticking with me so far, it means the fucking world to me <3

Also! If you guys are interested in giving me a lil something in return, how about a nice review? Especially those lurkers out there, drop me a sentence! Tell me what you loved so far, what you'd like to see in the future, what you'd change in the fic if you could... This fic has like 62k hits (HOLY SHIT THAT'S A LOT WHAT THE FUCK) and over 3k kudos (WHAT??? HOW?? YOU GUYS ARE INSANE THANK YOU SO MUCH). Now, compare that to the number of reviews it has and keep in mind I almost always reply back (not this month cause you guys know I'm fucking buried in work but I'll catch up on it pretty soon!)... ya see what I mean? Fandom when I started out like almost ten years ago was soo much more active in the comment section!!! I hugely encourage you guys to bring back that part of our community back, I've been actively trying to do that myself. And like, I don't mean to say things like if you really appreciate this fic than you should be dropping really thought out reviews on every chapter!!!! I'm a reader myself, I know sometimes I simply don't have the energy to drop even a single line even if I love the author and the story to bits. But I'm always thinking on how I can literally make that stranger's day just by pushing through that feeling sometimes and writing some nice words. I'm all about aggressively spreading positivity, y'all.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound preachy! I love you all so much and I'm incredibly grateful for all the support you guys show me. I really wouldn't be able to write this fic without it. So thank you for sticking with me so far! And welcome to the new faces I've been seeing ;)

Next chapter we finally get to what this fic was supposed to be about.

<3

Chapter 31: Kaigijitsu no Ta

Notes:

... hi?

>.< I'm so so sorry I missed the last two updates! I let you guys know I probably wouldn't post and then I did but that kinda fucked up my schedule bc I had nothing to post on the weeks that I had to work the most at uni so... yeah. I'M BACK THO. For good. You guys really stepped up your reviewing game last chapter and I have no words to thank you, fuck. Truly, you have no idea how you guys always make my day. You've made this quarantine and end of semester shitty combo infinitely better <3

This chapter was a huge one (like seriously humongous 14k+ words, more than 47 pages long) and I was originally gonna hold it until this friday but then I realised I already kept you guys waiting long enough. So, this first part is kinda filler-y in a way but it's very important and the next chapter comes out Friday as scheduled so you won't have to wait too long! Please don't forget to review both on this one and the next.

Enjoy :)

Kakashi entered the conference room deep into ANBU’s headquarters with the ease and familiarity of someone who knew every inch and cranny of the place. And he did. He had, in fact, even lived there for some time between the Kyuubi’s attack and the renovations on the apartment Usui had guided him and Genma into buying the plants for. 

 

He remembered Usui’s heavy hand on his soot covered shoulder as the man had guided Kakashi and Genma to clean up and eat something. There had been no one at the time to take care of either of them and even though there hadn't been a shortage of things to be done around the village, Usui had stuck by them. By the end of the week, the both of them had bought two apartments just a couple of doors from each other.

 

The months Kakashi had lived in the ANBU barracks were one of the worst of his life but there had been moments of reprieve. Moments that brought fleeting smiles to his covered lips, moments in which he would feel alone and desperate, yes, but then he would look at Genma—Yugao, Yamato, Usui—and realise he wasn’t the only one like that. 

 

The man himself was sitting inside their assigned conference room, the one with only a simple rectangular table in the middle that could seat twelve people and a white board that wasn’t used much. This was conference room 10, the one assigned only to extremely important missions. The kind of mission briefings that required more than one team and that the Hokage themselves sometimes sat in.

 

Genma saluted him with a cheeky smirk when he saw him come in. He was on the last seat at the table, the one closest to the white board, balancing his weight on the two back legs of the chair. Directly across from him sat Tenzo.

 

“Good morning, senpai,” his kouhai said with a faint smile. 

 

Kakashi had to admit to himself that it was a nice change not to be instantly berated for his lateness. Usually for important meetings and ANBU related things he was always on time, or at least close to it, as opposed to all his dealings as a jounin.

 

While he felt he owed it to Obito to keep his Will of Fire burning and incorporated some of his traits into his personality, Kakashi in his core was a stickler for the rules. Usui had helped him mellow that part of him down in a way, always going on about how he was perceived and that it was always best to keep everyone guessing. Still, that day he had forgone his visit to the memorial stone. He knew he had a predisposition to getting stuck inside his head there and quickly losing track of time, so it felt safer to not go at all.

 

Even though his stomach was still rolling with guilt and unease at not paying his respects.

 

Kakashi took his seat next to Tenzo and forced himself to at least nod occasionally as his two friends chatted. As much as he tried to keep himself in the present, he felt off kilter and the slightest bit nauseous. Guilt and the mounting anxiety of having the Akatsuki finally making some noise kept him trapped inside his own head.

 

Kakashi took a deep breath to try and centre himself and then one more to slow down his heartbeat. On the third, his breath stuttered out of his chest when he saw the next person to come in.

 

It was Sakura, in the same ANBU uniform she had been wearing the day he gave her his father’s summons only she was slightly taller than the last time he had seen her about a year ago. Kakashi’s heartbeat sped up, his anxiety skyrocketing.

 

What was she doing there? 

 

If this was the type of mission he thought it was, he didn’t want her anywhere near it. He knew it was stupid of him to wish to protect her from everything but he couldn’t help it. When he saw how fast she was climbing the ranks and how out of her depth the girl he had met at Iruka’s classroom at the Academy would be in all these situations, he couldn’t escape the panic that closed his throat. He had given her his father’s summons so she wouldn’t be alone anymore.

 

Sakura was Team 7, she was family, she was pack. He didn’t think he’d survive losing another one.

 

Logically, he knew Sakura was an extremely capable ninja. Not only did she have a high standing inside Konoha but he had heard whispers of her name all across the nations. Her reputation preceded her and Kakashi felt equal parts proud of who she was becoming and guilty he hadn’t played his part in it. Sakura wasn’t on legendary level yet, but she was only eighteen. Kakashi had no doubt in a few years she’d reach and surpass the Godaime.

 

Still, having Sakura step inside this part of his world, hidden in the shadows and subterfuge, made anxiety rock through his body like he’d used Chidori on himself. Kakashi’s back straightened and his eye focused, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his chakra had spiked. 

 

It didn’t matter that Sakura was capable because if she was going to be his subordinate in this mission, he would make sure to be at his best so he could watch over her. Keep her safe.

 

“Are you okay?” The girl herself asked, making Kakashi snap his eyes to hers.

 

She was standing next to Genma on the other side of the table, getting ready to take a seat next to the man. Kakashi nodded slightly and Sakura offered him a small smile while she reached across the table to… was she going to squeeze his hand? 

 

Kakashi didn’t know. It didn’t even matter because in the next second, a heavy hand was clapping him on the back, rattling his whole body forward so hard he hit his chest on the edge of the table. Thank fuck for chestplates.

 

“Ready for some action, kid?” Usui ruffled his hair with a teasing hand and Kakashi immediately turned his head to glare at his mentor. “This one will be a hard one. You better be on top shape. Do you need Wolfie-chan to give you a checkup?”

 

Genma snickered and Kakashi turned his dirty look on him before accidentally catching Sakura’s eyes. She was also holding back a grin, he could tell. 

 

With a heavy sigh, Kakashi rolled his eye at them both.

 

“Maybe you should sit down, Usui,” he drawled. “A man your age should take every chance he has to rest. Your old bones will probably complain if you don’t.”

 

Usui immediately took a hold of his hair and shook his head around like he used to do when he was a kid and was being particularly obnoxious. 

 

“I’ll show you old bones, you little white haired punk.” 

 

Sakura was giggling now and Genma full out laughing while the rest of his old team were stuck between exasperation and amusement. Kakashi was glad Usui had used his uncanny ability to read him like a book to diffuse some of the tension.

 

The other team arrived then, almost at the same time. Boar’s team would be going with them then. That was great. As much as he didn’t particularly like the guy, he knew he was good.

 

When Kakashi had first gotten into ANBU he wasn’t exactly liked. There were some that sympathised with him but most were old enough to have lived through his father’s disgrace and still remembered it greatly. He had kept his head down and worked hard as usual but that kept him from truly ingraining himself in their tight knit community and only earned him the title of Cold Blooded Kakashi. A monster among their ranks.

 

After a while, when he had been placed into Team Ro, things had smoothed out. By the time he was almost twenty, things had settled down enough that he had earned not only their respect but also their admiration.

 

Boar was not one of those people.

 

Kakashi had originally been placed on his team. Team Boar even then was a team that held high regards. After the four elite ANBU teams, Team Boar was the best ANBU had to offer. And Kakashi had made the mistake of not giving Boar the proper respect as a captain. 

 

The fact that later on he had been placed on Team Ro, one of said four elite teams, hadn’t really helped with the man’s opinions of him. 

 

Rumour had it that Team Ko would be retiring because half of their components had reached an age that didn’t conduct well on the field. Kakashi was sure Boar would be chosen to captain it. He gave the man his patented crinkled-eye smile and hid a chuckle when his broad shoulders tensed.

 

Keiichi was the last operative to arrive and then Tsunade walked in.

 

Kakashi frowned at the integrants of the room. There was himself, Genma, Tenzo and Yugao composing Team Ro and then the four members of Team Boar, Sakura and Keiichi. It didn’t make sense. Unless they were thinking of adding a medic in each team making them a teammate bigger than protocol, those two were the odd men out.

 

Tsunade sat heavily down on her chair and steepled her fingers in front of her face.

 

“Good morning, operatives.” She took a slight breath and Kakashi’s attention was diverted to how tired she looked. He didn’t remember Minato-sensei looking as tired as the Godaime did at that moment. Then again, his sensei was almost a decade younger than Kakashi himself when he took on the hat. “This mission is going to be an S-Ranked one with layered aspects to it. I’ll let the Commander do your briefing.”

 

Usui, sitting on the Hokage’s left and sharing the head of the table, nodded slightly.

 

“A team on a B-Ranked mission was attacked near our borders with Water yesterday night. Only one of them made it out alive.” Usui was blunt and to the point and everyone in the room stood at attention. “The southeast outpost’s patrol found him in the woods and initial investigation showed that a large group had made camp nearby. Their previous reports showed that there had been a large activity of thefts in the area and it’s suspected that the large group is responsible for it. We had already been assembling a team to deal with them before the distress call came yesterday.”

 

Sakura shifted minutely on her chair and Kakashi’s eye fell on her for a second, enough to assure she was okay before turning back to Usui.

 

“The rumours our spies have been picking up suggests that some members of the Akatsuki were spotted near that area. If the Akatsuki are connected with the thieves, we’re going to need a stronger team manning the outpost. Team Boar, you’ll head out at noon to relieve the men over there and replenish the outpost’s supplies and you’ll hold your post until further notice.”

 

“Hai, Commander,” Boar said with a sharp nod.

 

“Team Ro, I want you to leave as soon as possible to circle the area and gather more clues as to what happened. I want to know who killed our men and why, I want eyes all over that part of our Land and I want to know if this crime syndicate has any connections to the Akatsuki. Expect possible confrontations. Until further notice, both teams will be stationed on the outpost.”

 

“Understood,” Kakashi said at the same time Tenzo said “Hai,” and Sakura, “Roger.”

 

There was a beat of silence in the room only broken when Tsunade let out an unladylike snort.

 

“By Team Ro, Usui means Tenzo as the captain and Fox filling up the missing spot,” she said, not bothering to hide her smirk as she took in Kakashi’s furrowed brows. “The two of you have other priorities.”

 

“The jounin-only mission.” Sakura nodded to herself and Kakashi’s brows furrowed further. This was the first time he was hearing of this. He had only received a quick missive via bird the night before to show up at six, a hidden code implying it had something to do with the Akatsuki. “Shouldn’t Asuma be here for this meeting, as well?”

 

“Sarutobi doesn’t have the clearance to be here,” Usui answered. “And it’s not paramount that he is. He’ll get his own instructions once that mission is ready to be deployed.”

 

“You mean until Team Ro has enough confirmation that the thieves have connections to the Akatsuki,” Kakashi deduced. The rolling in his stomach was returning a bit, but in the focused state he was at, it was relatively easy to push it down. He chanced another glance at Sakura but didn’t linger to see what he could read in her green eyes.

 

“Yes and no,” Usui answered, being completely unhelpful as usual. The sentiment behind Kakashi’s reproving look was echoed in Sakura’s annoyed sigh. “What I mean is that Team Ro won’t be the only ones investigating. Kakashi, I want you to head out with them and help them out. Your dogs should be a good advantage. Sakura, I want you to accompany Team Boar to the outpost. The only survivor is there and in need of medical assistance, your mission is to heal him and find out everything he knows.” Usui stopped and stared severely at Sakura. “We don’t know if he’s been compromised. He’s one of us but a survivor of a very sketchy situation so tread carefully.” 

 

“And the mission?” Kakashi asked, his voice taking the usual timbre it did when he was commanding an ANBU mission. 

 

It was Tsunade that answered.

 

“It’ll be a jounin-only S-Ranked mission even if the syndicate isn’t connected to the Akatsuki,” she said, putting one of her hands down on the table and using the other to brush her bangs from her face. “You, Sakura and Asuma will infiltrate the group and dismantle it from within. You’ll take whatever prisoners you can and kill if necessary. If you need backup, Team Ro will be on standby to assist.”

 

“If they are connected to the Akatsuki, the best thing we can do is have two people already involved with the investigation leading the mission, you see?” Usui grinned at him and shot them both a cheeky thumbs up. “There’s no one else we trust more.”

 

Kakashi knew what he meant by that. It wasn’t only that he and Sakura were trusted by the Commander and the Hokage but that they had enough standing inside and outside the village to deal with a situation as delicate as this. The Five Great Nations were already realising the threat that the Akatsuki posed and were acting accordingly. It would look bad if Konoha didn’t deploy their best to deal with them. 

 

And didn’t it throw him for a loop that Sakura was the one they decided was best fit to be his partner.

 

Kakashi looked at Sakura to find she had already been looking at him. He could see the fire burning in her jade eyes, the stubborn tilt to her jaw that had long since lost all bits of childness that had clung to it when they met. She was a fully fledged kunoichi now and she was ready to fight.

 

Kakashi nodded once at her, his face just as serious. 

 

The Akatsuki was not only a threat to their village but to the other half of Team 7. They would do anything to neutralise that threat and Kakashi would do anything to keep Sakura safe in the process.

 

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Sakura punched at Tsunade but the woman moved at the last minute and her fist caught a tree instead. The explosion of splinters that followed wasn’t enough to slow either of them down.

 

“Shishou, hear me out, damn it!” Sakura yelled in frustration and went for a series of rapidly issued kicks that pressed the blonde further into a copse of trees.

 

“I will when you manage to land a hit.” Tsunade, unfairly , hadn’t even dislodged her hairstyle despite the fact that there were now a few flyaways stuck to Sakura’s face.

 

In the next second, though, Sakura used an extra bout of chakra to her legs to propel her forward so she could grab the collar of Tsunade’s haori. Tsunade thought she was going for a punch and dodged away but it had only been a distraction so she could aim a well placed kick to the blonde’s ribs from her other side. 

 

Tsunade flew through a tree.

 

For a second, the two only blinked, both set of eyes wide and surprised as they stared at each other through the remains of the poor tree. 

 

It had been a move a bit too intense for a sparring match on Sakura’s side but, really, the two of them didn’t spar against each other so they could go easy. They already had to do that with virtually anyone else. The only time they could really unleash the power behind their moves was with each other because they had complete faith that it wouldn’t kill them.

 

What was surprising was that Tsunade hadn’t been able to dodge the kick.

 

Her shishou got up from the forest floor with a loud bark of a laugh and walked until she could throw one arm over Sakura’s shoulder. The other one went to heal her torso.

 

“You broke a couple of ribs there, brat.” Tsunade grinned at her as they started walking home. “Good job.”

 

Sakura’s heart swelled with pride and affection. She loved this woman. Receiving praise from her wasn’t exactly common but it just made these moments all that more important. It didn’t, however, make her forget she had a point to make.

 

As soon as they entered their house, Sakura shot her shishou a reproving look.

 

“Let me at least sit down to eat before you start yelling, alright?” Tsunade didn’t even give her time to reply before she was moving towards the kitchen table where Shizune was placing their breakfast.

 

As soon as the meeting at HQ was over, Sakura had been dragged by Tsunade to the training grounds. Apparently the woman only had to go into the office at ten and it was still barely seven, so it was the perfect opportunity to do some exercise. Sakura had been a bit reluctant since she would be leaving for the mission at noon but she didn’t really have too much to do before then so she didn’t fight much.

 

Until she remembered her dream the night before.

 

It was more of a nightmare, really, with all her loved ones having to run for their lives. Sasuke’s eyes and Naruto’s smile dimmed and flat and wrong and all throughout the dream, red clouds in a dark night sky.

 

The Akatsuki was making noise. At this point, the rumours around the nations were getting louder and the more time Sakura didn’t have Naruto in the village so she could look after him, the antsier she got. Not to mention the fact that, in her opinion, the sooner they reached Uchiha Itachi the better and the fact that they were running against the clock was making it harder for her to sleep at night.

 

Who knows how Sasuke’s training with Orochimaru was going. For all they knew, he could have been moving at that moment to murder his older brother. Sakura was afraid he wouldn’t ever come back home if that happened and he found out the truth.

 

“We need to contact Itachi,” Sakura said as soon as the three of them were all seated. Tsunade sighed into her coffee but Sakura powered on. “Sasuke is out there, thinking his brother murdered his entire family and seeking revenge for it.”

 

“He did murder them,” Tsunade said around her bite of rice and eggs.

 

“He was following orders. He was thirteen for fuck’s sake and that was the only way he could find to save his brother! That has to—” that has to count for something, she didn’t say. Sakura sighed, then changed gears. “As of right now, the only two Sharingan in the world are outside Konoha and at least one of them is actively against us.”

 

“I’m not saying it isn’t important to get Itachi back on our side,” Tsunade said, finally turning her full attention to Sakura. “But we have to be careful. That old cog Danzo cannot get even a whiff of this and besides that, the last contact made with Uchiha Itachi was nine years ago.”

 

“Then assign him a handler! What good is an infiltrated spy if they don’t have anyone to report back to!” Sakura exclaimed, getting riled up when faced with her village’s incompetence in dealing with this situation so far. She hoped that wherever Sarutobi Hiruzen was, he was suffering. She would make sure Danzo got what he deserved on this side.

 

“Nine years is a long time to be undercover, Sakura-chan,” Shizune explained, her voice calm as ever if the slightest bit condescending. “Even if we see them as the ‘bad guys’, that’s almost a decade of working together. It’s almost impossible for Itachi to not have developed an attachment.”

 

“Enough of an attachment that he would forget about his brother’s wellbeing?” Sakura challenged and was slightly mollified in her anger when Shizune bowed her head in acceptance.

 

“You may be right about that,” she offered, then turned to Tsunade. “What about Kakashi-san? I’m sure he would be one of the best people to approach Uchiha Itachi.”

 

“That’s true, but he’s needed elsewhere.” Tsunade sighed. She looked seriously at Sakura for a moment before her eyes softened. “I’m not taking this lightly, Sakura. The Akatsuki as a whole is a top priority at the moment, you focus on your mission and let me handle this. I already have my best spymaster working on tracking down Uchiha Itachi for initial contact.”

 

Sakura nodded at her shishou, letting the subject drop, and focused on her breakfast. 

 

She still felt her stomach churning at the thought of leaving Itachi to his own devices for too long, but she could see Tsunade’s point. Koharu and Homura had several meetings between themselves that Team Ro had documented and even a couple of them had Danzo included. 

 

The two Elders didn’t agree with Tsunade’s promotion of Shikaku and Inoichi and she knew they needed to be careful until the rumours that Ibiki would be joining the Council consolidated. If Sakura had to guess, it would be a few weeks until Tsunade appointed him and they had to keep everything on the down low until then.

 

As of right now, anything that came down to a vote would have Shikaku and Inoichi taking Tsunade’s side while the Elders would stand against them. They needed a tie breaker and a way to settle down Hyuga Hisashi’s hurt pride. They absolutely needed everything to go according to plan at least until they had the majority votes in the Council to their favour. 

 

Homura and Koharu had kept antagonizing Tsunade, showing their displeasure that she had been chosen to take on the hat but now with Shikaku and Inoichi participating in meetings and supporting her, they didn’t have much ground to stand on. That had made them angrier. 

 

If Sakura had to guess, Tsunade had been their last choice to place as Hokage and the only reason they had gone to her after Jiraiya refused had been because they assumed she’d be malleable because of her traumas. How wrong they had been.

 

Her shishou had come back to Konoha already overworked, with heaps of unhealthy coping mechanisms and got placed in a position where every single thing she did was challenged or overruled. Sakura had watched how the truth about the Uchiha Massacre had changed Tsunade.

 

It was like she had said enough was enough and then she had a purpose . Her bad habits, while still present, had been thrown to the back burner and she had stepped up and she had thrived . Sakura couldn’t be more proud of her. 

 

She trusted her completely, even if it meant swallowing down her anxieties when it came to Naruto, Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi. She wondered as she finished her breakfast, how long it would take until this war finally knocked on their door and they had to bring more people into it.

 

That day, Sakura spent organising herself for a long mission. She had to pack anything she would need to heal the chunin at the outpost along with her ANBU gear and warmer clothes for the cold. Then, she had to pack enough clothing to help her disguise while infiltrating the thieves camp.

 

During their mission briefing, Tsunade had said that their cover would be rogue nin from Konoha that had been selling information to other villages to earn extra cash. Sakura would pose as a medic that used to work at the hospital since they probably didn’t have anyone with that particular set of skills and Kakashi and Asuma tokujo that couldn’t reach jounin status because of their lack of birth status. Their cover was that they were heading to Water to find a job as mercenaries.

 

She had to dress like she was a kunoichi but still kept a fairly civilian lifestyle.

 

She would be using the same untraceable genjutsu she used in ANBU to make her hair a dark auburn and another one to hide her tattoo. Sakura thought for a few seconds that it would do well to hide her scar but she settled for using them to further deepen her cover story. 

 

This character she was creating, Akari, used to be a genin studying to become a medic ninja when her whole team was killed on a mission. She had the scar to prove the fateful mission that had sent her straight into the hospital and had made her decide to climb the ladder there instead of working in the field. There she became friends with Kakashi and Asuma when they came in to get fixed up and the rest she could decide with them later on.

 

Akari liked wearing dark clothes that contrasted nicely to her bright and bubbly personality. She preferred simple yukata-style vests with large but soft obi and lycra pants with short black sandals. She always kept her hair up in a high ponytail and she wore makeup because she didn’t have to worry about it melting off in the middle of a fight or training. The only thing Sakura would keep to her style were her nails, painted blood red like her shishou’s. 

 

Sakura carefully folded Akari’s things and closed her inside a simple backpack. Right at that moment, she had to put on Wolf-taichou. 

 

Sakura readied herself in her ANBU uniform again, tied her braid and left the house with her full pack. She made a quick stop to say goodbye to her shishou, already wearing her mask and auburn hair so she wouldn’t be recognised.

 

Shikaku was the only one inside the office with her so Sakura slid her mask up so she could place a quick kiss on her shishou’s temple.

 

“I’ll be back soon, try and keep the village from burning while I’m gone.” Sakura smirked at the snort Tsunade gave and replaced her mask.

 

“You keep your head on straight, you hear me, brat?” Tsunade asked. “This isn’t a ‘let’s be reckless and go hunt some Akatsuki members’ kind of mission. Your orders are to gather as much intel on them as possible and deal with those thieves. If they just happen to be a source of income to the Akatsuki? Great, obliterate them and get your pink ass home.” 

 

Sakura huffed a laugh.

 

“Roger that.” She saluted the two of them cheekily. “See you when I get back.”

 

Then Sakura shunshined away from the office, leaving only a puff of cherry blossoms behind her.

 

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The chunin was still in shock when Sakura got to the outpost with Team Boar. He had a few deep cuts on his torso and severe chakra exhaustion from using so much of it to run away but nothing life threatening. He wasn’t exactly communicative, however, and that made Sakura’s job infinitely worse.

 

She usually didn’t have the patience to deal with situations such as this. Inner helped a bit to try and put up a calm and sweet façade to draw the man out of his misery but it was tedious work. 

 

The sun had already set when the man finally managed to string more than two words together, his brown hair matted with sweat against his forehead. 

 

“Red clouds… in the distance,” he rasped finally. 

 

Having been given an in, Sakura wormed herself further into his mind trying to pick up things to show her the full picture. From what little he had managed to say, his team had been on their way back from a B-Rank mission in Water and had stumbled upon two Akatsuki members engaged in a fight with two other ninja who seemed to be jounin-level. 

 

The chunin, Arai Jun, was covering his team’s back when his jounin captain that had been the one taking point had been quickly decapitated. He yelled for his teammates to run and didn’t waste any time before using all his chakra to reach the general direction of the outpost. His friends hadn’t followed him.

 

Jun had then dissolved into tears, his face scrunching up as he tried to take a heaving breath.

 

“Yukihito-kun, he—” Jun choked on a sob and turned on his side, clutching the blanket in tight fists. “Yukihito-kun… I didn’t stay. I-I couldn’t stay! Please, Yukihito-kun!”

 

Sakura averted her eyes, unable to block his heartache from reaching deep inside her. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through. She didn’t want to. So she put a chakra laden hand over his fist.

 

“Sleep now, Jun-san,” she muttered as her chakra entered his system to slow down his heartbeats and finally got to his brain to put him in a medically induced coma. 

 

She didn’t think he was a flight risk or a traitor but she did fear for his mental state. He didn’t need to be awake for the way back home, it was best for him to rest up. At least until the team that had been manning the outpost took him to T&I and his case was overseen by a Yamanaka.

 

The team left a few moments later, trying to hide their relief at being extricated from the situation. They had left the place spotless at least.

 

Team Boar was in the mess hall, sitting around one of the three round tables and discussing their schedules, who would take what shift and be responsible for what chores.

 

“Taichou~” Starling drawled dramatically, placing his still masked face on top of his hand on the table. “Please don’t give me kitchen duty again!”

 

“Dinner tonight, breakfast tomorrow,” Boar grunted then shrugged. “Not my fault you’re the best cook, kid.”

 

“Should never have told you guys that…” Starling muttered to himself while his teammates snickered.

 

“Boar, I’ll do a perimeter check while Team Ro is still out there,” Sakura said, sliding her mask back into place. “Will that fuck up your roster?”

 

Boar’s teammates were looking at her from behind their masks like she was a ghost and she was sure their mouths were hanging open. Inner smiled smugly as Sakura tilted her head slightly to the side.

 

“You’ll be doing us a favour, actually,” Boar replied, his tone significantly more polite than before. “Although, we’re the ones responsible for keeping up this place, Wolf-sensei. You don’t have to do anything, really.”

 

Sakura smiled at him even though she knew he couldn’t see it and squeezed one of his massive shoulders.

 

“I know. I just feel restless with my team out there.” She turned to leave. “I’ll see you soon, then!”

 

“Don’t forget to take your warmer clothes!” Boar called, making Sakura halt her steps. “It gets pretty cold this close to Water during autumn.”

 

Sakura paused by her bag near the entrance only long enough to put on a long sleeved shirt beneath her chest plate, arm guards and gloves. She saluted the men on the table.

 

“I’ll be back in time to taste Starling’s dinner.” She smiled cheekily. “Ja!” And left through the front door. 

 

As soon as she was outside, Sakura took to the rooftop. The structure of the outpost was made of wood and stone and the design was familiar. She would bet everything she had that Tenzo had been the one to build it or at least the one to fortify the way it was now.

 

It was a circular tower of two floors and a basement, great iron doors on the front and rectangular windows much like the Hokage Tower only these windows were floor to ceiling and made of wood. Each level had its own pagoda style roof and the top one was growing a tree. It blended with the surrounding trees, its canopy meeting the others, so the outpost was invisible from a bird’s-eye view.

 

On the stone walls, moss grew much like it did around the forest. The climate this close to Water was cold at night but held plenty of humidity this close to the sea so the trees were denser and moss was abundant. 

 

Sakura climbed to the tree growing on the roof and sat silently in one of the branches, just breathing in for a few moments.

 

She activated her chakra enhanced senses and translated what she felt into usable data. When she had just begun learning from the pack, it was overwhelming to receive all of that information at once, the smells of each different plant, animal and person around her easily becoming a jumbled mess to her brain. 

 

But with practice came perfection and Sakura wasn’t one to slack off in her training. 

 

Her nose wasn’t as good as her pack’s but she could know exactly where her team was at the moment and any different smells around the perimeter of the outpost were easily identifiable. It looked like Team Ro was already returning from their search. 

 

Sakura did a quick lap around the tower, setting up some traps to help her sleep better at night, and intercepted Team Ro on their way back.

 

“Yo!” She smiled at them from behind her mask, giving a little wave for effect as she stepped into the branch Kakashi had just touched down from his position of leader. He wasn’t the captain in this mission, but with his expertise and respect in Team Ro, it was understandable that he would take point while Keiichi covered their back with the Byakugan.

 

“Got tired of waiting around for us, Princess?” Genma asked.

 

“Something like that.” Sakura cocked her head to the side, noticing how the five of them were shivering even beneath their travel cloaks. Sakura had eschewed hers for the mission first because it took too much space and second because she had never been comfortable in fighting with them. She much preferred to wear a long sleeved shirt like she was at the moment, protocols be damned.

 

“Did you heal the guy?” Keiichi asked but was quickly cut off by the sharp way Kakashi turned his head to look at him. 

 

“Let’s get back,” he said curtly, making Sakura turn her head to look at him, her gaze appraising and calculating.

 

She hadn’t known Kakashi to be this curt. The commanding voice he used as a jounin instructor demanded attention just the same as this one but it didn’t hold any of this sharpness. The only thing she could compare it to was the way he had spoken to her that day inside his bathroom when she had witnessed his private moment.

 

It took her a while to realise what she had been looking for as they made the short way back to the outpost.

 

Kakashi’s voice wasn’t the only thing that seemed to be changed. It was like he put on the ANBU uniform and became someone else. While his posture still held an air of detachment, there was no slouch in sight and in its place, a new kind of tension cursed through his form. Like he was always battle ready without making it seem as if he was.

 

They were both leading now, their heads swivelling to scan their surroundings and once or twice their gazes met. The closed canopies of the forest impeded much light from reaching them even with the moon just beginning to wane but the next time their eyes met, they were passing through a sliver of moonlight and Sakura could notice what else was different about him.

 

From behind the hound mask, the Sharingan was glaring bright red, the contrast between the white mask looking like blood on fresh snow.

 

Sakura felt her heartbeat speed up, her breaths shorten as if she was preparing for battle. The rush of chakra was dizzying because Sakura hadn’t been prepared for the instinctual reaction Inner had. She clamped down hard on the Killing Intent that was wanting to leak and forcibly calmed herself down.

 

This wasn't a battle. She had nothing to get worked up over.

 

Sakura wondered briefly if the rest of the team had noticed this sudden change in Kakashi. They were probably used to this, she concluded. They had known ANBU Kakashi long before being introduced to Jounin Kakashi, after all. Still, her mind reeled a bit, trying to reconcile the two. 

 

It had gotten even colder before they reached the outpost. Still, when they got there, Team Boar met them with a feast. Well, compared to what could usually be served at an outpost.

 

The mission talk was quickly gone over while they ate, Team Boar in one table and Team Ro in another. Even though they were sitting at different tables, they were close enough that they could talk easily between them. 

 

Team Ro had found evidence of a large camp about ten kilometres of the outpost, the proximity making everyone tense. It seemed like they had moved further north along the border, putting more distance between them and Sakura wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. 

 

Kakashi had estimated twenty ninja through his pack and noticed two others had veered course inland. The Akatsuki duo, if Arai Jun was to be believed. 

 

The report had already been sent to the Hokage via Uhei, the fastest of the pack and Asuma would surely join them in the morning so they could proceed with their mission. Team Ro would be on standby in the outpost, doing routine scans of their surroundings while Asuma, Sakura and Kakashi infiltrated the rogue camp. 

 

Sakura suggested having Kaede as a liaison between their two teams. After all, their bond connection let them talk to each other as far away as a kilometre apart. The rest of the pack and Sakura needed to be within eyesight but there were perks to having a bond like she did with Kaede. Kakashi suggested having both their packs around the forest, keeping their eyes peeled to any suspicious activity and Sakura agreed.

 

Dinner went by faster than she expected as the wind rattled their windows and soon enough, the alcohol and cards came out. Sakura wasn’t sure why exactly she was surprised by that. It wasn’t unusual for ANBU missions to proceed like that but maybe Kakashi’s presence and the fact that they would be taking a decidedly non-ANBU mission in the morning had thrown her off. 

 

It was different, having him in this space that she had made hers. She didn’t know why she was feeling so possessive of it. Maybe it was because in a way she had always held back whenever with him. Even though their relationship had changed drastically ever since her jounin graduation and then when he gave her his father’s pack, she had still been a version of the old Sakura with him. Their interactions since then had been few and far between and he had never really seen who she had become. 

 

Sakura frowned down at her whisky before examining her cards. Team Boar was boisterous on the table over and from time to time Boar himself would call her to yell some kind of praise as his teacher while teasingly insulting his teammates. Team Ro was not as loud but no less outgoing, their usual overly affectionate handling of each other taking place. Keiichi’s cheeks were perpetually red once they reached the second round.

 

Sakura took a deep breath and released all the tension in her shoulders. She had been a bit uncomfortable with Kakashi there. Having to reconcile the girl he knew with the woman she’d become wasn’t as easy as she had been expecting and she found herself not quite knowing how to act. But enough was enough.

 

This—being in an ANBU mission, having her students looking up to her and her teammates comforting warmth around her—this was her turf. She was comfortable there and no matter what kind of past she shared with Kakashi, it couldn’t change the person she’d become. She had worked hard to get there and Tsunade hadn’t trained her to push herself inside boxes and labels that didn’t fit her anymore. She wasn’t genin Sakura. She wasn’t Hatake Kakashi’s student. 

 

She was ANBU Captain Wolf. The Red Wolf of Konoha. Sakura-hime, the Ghost Wolf. She had stopped diminishing herself. 

 

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.

 

Notes:

Yoooo I have so much to say!!! Okay, first order of business is the timeline that I promised y'all. It get's wonky and I completely disregard canon as you've noticed.

->The story starts when Sakura is 13, about six months after Team 7 graduated the Academy (it's my personal hc that Sakura and civilian borne Academy students in general are older than the clan kids so Sakura, in this one, is almost a full year older than Naruto) so by the time she goes on her first chunin mission, she's like four to six months shy of 14.
->Sakura first entered ANBU when she was 14 1/2, then she spent roughly six months there as an unofficial member.
->She turned 15 a week before she became Wolf officially and got appointed as jounin immediately after.
->A month later (so she's still 15) the jounin exam takes place.
->Six months later (so Sakura is well on her way to 16) Kakashi gives her the summons.
->Almost two months later Sakura gets pulled from ANBU and starts taking mostly only jounin missions
->The first few months is when she starts hooking up w Neji but it's still very sporadic, she goes on that mission to Iwa
-> Six months more, Sakura is like 16 1/2, she stopped taking missions only w the rookie jounin and goes to that mission in Sand w Kiba and his fam.
->Sakura is 17 whenshe goes to the mission in Wave and meets up Choujiro and Ao.
->17 1/2 when she goes to Kiri and hooks up w C.
-> This chapter (31) takes place roughly six months later, Sakura has already turned 18.

I hope I didn't fuck this up or forget something lol. Anyway, I wasn't sure when I started this if I wanted to follow canon's loose 2 and a half years timeskip but it felt right to change it. Like, objectively speaking that's a really short period of time to train, right? I think it's okay that things take place in a longer period of time. That being said, I'm still not sure how close I'm gonna play this to canon from now on, I already changed too much, the ripple effect is already being noticed. I'm excited :)

In regards to ANBU! I created a few headcanons lol. So, in Japanese the hiragana character for Ro (as in team ろ) resembles the number 3. I always found it funny and peculiar like what the fuck does Ro stand for?? No idea. It could be something, honestly I'm a beginner at best when it comes to japanese, but I kinda liked the idea that it just... resembled a 3. Lol. And like, in fiction and I'm pretty sure in canon too, the other teams are like: Team Boar, Team Tiger, etc. So, my hc is that inside ANBU there are tiers much like genin, chunin, jounin. Only they're not about specific ninja but about the team and the kind of missions they take. So I looked at the hiragana chart and noticed four other characters kinda resembled numbers and went with it. Kakashi kinda explained it in this chapter but not in detail so: Team ろ (ro), Team ら (ra), Team こ (ko) and Team や (ya) are the elite teams in ANBU. They take the best and most dangerous missions. (Also, I know the ya character is a bit farfetched but it looks like a mirrored 9). This chapter is called Kaigijitsu no Ta （会議場のた）. Kaigijitsu means conference room and Ta (た) loosely resembles the number 10. So. Conference Room 10. Lol. So, after those four elite teams, comes the teams named after their taichou (Team Boar, Team Tiger, etc). In here, Team Boar (Boar especially) is being considered to take over as one of the elite teams when they retire. Usui will make that decision based on their skills and mission success rate... :)

I'm deadass SO EXCITED for this next arc in this fic, you guys have no idea lmao. Next chapter we pick up almost immediately after this one with almost 8k words of Kakashi's POV hihi :)

Thank you so much for sticking around, you guys mean the world to me. I'm honestly blown away by your support and also: HI LURKERS-SAN! You guys really stepped up your game last chapter, I was so happy to see so many new faces (ahem, usernames) and I'm immensely grateful that you guys took the time to review :)

Much love and see y'all this next Fire Friday,

J

Chapter 32: Hatanaka Kato & Akari

Notes:

It's Fire Friday, everyone!!! This is coming later in the day that I was aiming for but I had to go to the optician and ended up getting my pupils dilated so I couldn't see shit and then I had a fkn migraine because my eyes were too sensitive for the sun. Lol, not a nice day for me.

Remember, this chapter was supposed to be one with chapter 31, so we continue right after we left off, only this time strictly with Kakashi's POV. I know you all missed Team Ro and since they won't be present for most of the mission, here. Have a nice chapter with them being drunk fools :)

 

“Pay up, suckers,” Sakura said, a teasing smirk on her lips as she spread her cards on their table. Team Ro groaned again, having lost the last few rounds to her already. They weren’t betting much, just some chocolate and extra servings of breakfast but Kakashi still frowned.

 

He had used the Sharingan this time. He was sure he was going to win that round. Okay, maybe it was cheating but he had no misguided notions that his other teammates weren’t doing that as well. He just hadn’t actually seen Sakura do anything that could be held against her.

 

Kakashi pouted behind his mask and accepted his loss. Sakura had been trained by Tsunade after all.

 

The six of them, the official members of Team Ro plus Sakura and Kakashi, had been playing for more than an hour already. Team Boar had taken to playing an altered version of charades after one too many arguments had broken over poker and were loudly cursing at each other.

 

Kakashi wasn’t exactly happy with their overall carefree attitude towards the mission but he understood. Even though they were probably going to have to deal with the Akatsuki soon, this was their first night at the outpost and ninja—specially ANBU ninja—liked to celebrate whenever they could. Life was too short and uncertain not to. Everyone would be ready for combat by the morning.

 

It also helped settle his inner control freak that on his way back, Kakashi had noticed that Sakura had set up several traps around their tower. Some of the designs he could recognise from books he had brought to her while they had their training as Team 7, most of them he wouldn’t have noticed without the Sharingan.

 

It was hard. Having Sakura this close to a mission so dangerous wasn’t something he was truly equipped to deal with, if he was being honest, he didn’t know how to fit her in the carefully labelled box he had put her when they met. He had to rationalise and come to terms with the fact that she was there. 

 

In the end, Kakashi was proud to say it only took him about two rounds of whisky for him to accept this new reality. The same way that when he had met Tenzo, he had just been a boy named Inoue and later grown to be one of his most trusted friends, Sakura had changed and developed from the girl he’d met four and a half years ago.

 

After he made that comparison, it was easier to settle down into the easy banter Team Ro had. Sakura was absolutely annihilating everyone in their small table and he had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t more upset about it only because he was well on his way to being drunk. They all were.

 

Boar was still randomly bringing Sakura into his team’s conversation, calling out “Sensei~!” every once in a while to get her attention. Genma and Yugao seemed to have lost all sense of personal space with the pink haired taichou while Keiichi’s cheeks were perpetually red even when Sakura wasn’t addressing him. Even Tenzo seemed looser and more comfortable with her.

 

Kakashi smiled behind his mask. He was glad.

 

“Alright, enough fucking around!” Genma yelled, smacking his hand on the table and scattering their cards. He put one arm around Sakura’s shoulders and brought her closer to him, squishing her cheeks with one hand. “It’s time we get down to business.”

 

“You’re kidding,” Sakura said, her voice distorted because Genma still had a firm hold of her cheeks. 

 

“Nuh-huh.” Genma shook her head a bit and Sakura scowled at him before slapping his hands away and punching him on the shoulder in retaliation. Genma paid her no mind. “Do you two even have a cover story? Have you discussed how you’re going to approach this group? What about knowing what the other packed? Huh?!”

 

“I figured we’d discuss all that when Asuma gets here.” Sakura shrugged. 

 

While Kakashi agreed with her—that had been his original plan, after all—he still saw Genma’s point. They had to hash everything out to perfection since they didn’t really know what they would be dealing with.

 

“Psht, Asuma.” Genma waved his arm dramatically around, his senbon bobbing precariously between his teeth. “Who told the old bastard to leave Konoha when he did? If he’d stuck around he’d be with us in ANBU, for sure! We can’t wait around for him to get here until we start hashing out a plan. He can be briefed when he gets his ass here.”

 

Kakashi saw the way Sakura’s eyebrows skyrocketed on her forehead. She was probably surprised at the new piece of information regarding Asuma. Unless you had been around at the time, Asuma’s stitch at the Fire Temple wasn’t something wildly talked about in the village. The Sandaime had made sure of it. While it hadn’t made a big difference for their interactions in these past five or so years, it had created a gap between them at the time. Still, Sakura made no comment on it.

 

“Where’s this we coming from, jiji?” She smirked at him and bumped his shoulder with hers. “You’re not included in this mission.”

 

“The hell I’m not,” Genma said, crossing his arms haughtily and playfully glaring at her. “On standby practically means I’m in.”

 

Sakura laughed—a carefree laugh that he had never really heard from her before that night but that still made him smile reflexively—and pressed a quick kiss to the older man’s cheek. 

 

“Of course, of course.” Sakura snickered and Yugao joined her. The two of them winked at the other before Sakura started pouring them all their next round. If Kakashi was being honest with himself, he had completely lost track of how many there had been.

 

“Do you have a cover yet?” Yugao asked, her husky voice made huskier by the booze.

 

“Akari, chunin medic-nin whose team died and made her want to follow her career at the hospital. She met Asuma and Kakashi there while they were seeking medical help after a spar gone wrong and they became friends. She deserted Konoha with them after taxes went up during the constructions after the Konoha Crush, they were selling secrets on the side to make extra cash and had to leave eventually so they wouldn’t be found out.”

 

Kakashi stared at Sakura for a second, the rest of the team doing the same with slightly slack jaws. With her hair dark auburn as it was with her ANBU get up, she looked completely foreign to Kakashi. 

 

“Right, you’ve always been an overachiever, no surprise there.” Genma brushed her off even though pride clearly shone in his eyes. He turned to Kakashi; “What about you, old man?”

 

“I’m younger than you, bastard.” Kakashi sighed as the others snickered. “Hatanaka Kato. Rogue nin. Tokujo.”

 

There was a beat of silence before Sakura snickered. Yugao followed and soon enough the whole table was laughing.

 

“That’s, uh, that’s it? Nothing to add to that, senpai?” Tenzo asked, scratching the back of his head. He hadn’t drunk as much as the rest of them to keep at least some of his wits around him but his words still slurred like the rest of them. He wouldn't have questioned Kakashi otherwise.

 

Kakashi shrugged and downed his whiskey before reaching for more, a carefree smile hidden behind his mask.

 

Usually by now he would already have taken it off, especially on a night like this with his team. Still, something was making him drink his cloth tasting whisky. He didn’t know if it was Team’s Boar presence so close to them or Sakura’s. Kakashi didn’t have the same setbacks while in ANBU that he did out in the open in the village, especially after he had made a name for himself inside the ranks. Most of them knew what he looked like, and none really cared.

 

Sakura was different. 

 

She hadn’t met him inside the ranks where his reputation preceded him and demanded respect. While she didn’t know much about his past besides the little he had told her, she had come to know him as the eccentric jounin instructor that never showed his face, it had been something of importance to Team 7. He wasn’t sure how to respect that history while still being his usual ANBU self.

 

“Having a couple on the team will surely make things easier,” Keiichi offered, his voice more timid than Kakashi had ever heard coming from the man. While he wasn’t exactly outspoken as was expected from someone from his clan, he had never been this introverted. Kakashi saw the furtive glance he shot Sakura and tried to smother a smirk. Cute .

 

“Yes!” Yugao shouted, her arms flailing around as she eagerly went on a tangent about the best ways to blend in as a trio with a woman. If Kakashi was being honest, he didn’t quite get everything she was saying, his drunken mind catching on a few words while his thoughts jumped around aimlessly. He should drink more. “And that’s why the best way to go is to pair off the two that are more comfortable with each other, you know? Comfort easily translates into attraction if played right and if you have enough experience fighting side by side it’s much, much easier to follow the other’s visual cues and act accordingly. It makes it more believable.”

 

Kakashi was vaguely surprised that his cute little kouhai was using such big words and strong logic, she usually wasn’t this… verbally sound when drunk. But then again, the two of them hadn’t gotten properly gotten drunk together in a long time. Not ever since that night they had sought comfort in each other a few months after the Konoha Crush. He nodded along to what she was saying, agreeing in general and forcing his mind to focus.

 

It was only when he noticed Sakura that his mind caught up to just what exactly Yugao had suggested. Sakura’s unchanged green eyes were wide as she blinked at Yugao and then at him. A few strands of auburn hair fell into her eyes as she shook her head slightly and she brushed them back, looking more unsure than he had seen her ever since Team 7 had fallen apart.

 

Oh. Right. By Yugao’s logic, it would be for the best that Sakura and him pretended to be a couple. Akari and Kato. Kakashi frowned and shrugged, alcohol making him compliant.

 

It made sense. By Sakura’s backstory it would also fit well, the two ninja having fallen in love after she healed him and then innocent Akari being pulled into… whatever the name Asuma chose and Kato’s illegal side job. If Sakura had been anyone else, he would definitely have gone with that cover story.

 

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Sakura wasn’t just anyone else. She was Sakura. Obviously.

 

Kakashi frowned harder as he continued to nod, gaze fixated on the table. The rest of the team had continued discussing the merits of that cover, going over eventual problems and solutions to those. Sakura still hadn’t said a thing.

 

Kakashi finally brought his gaze up to observe her and try to get a feel of her. His eyes first scrutinised her to assert she would fit in the role. She didn’t look too young to be with him. If his estimation was correct, she would be about eighteen and she even looked a couple of years older than that. The dark auburn hair made her look more serious in a way and it was a striking enough contrast to her bright green jade eyes that a man like Kakashi—like Kato— couldn’t be faulted for falling for her. 

 

Without caring how it looked, Kakashi’s gaze slid further down. Sakura had long since blossomed into her body. Curves not as pronounced as some women but womanly and appealing all the same. Objectively, she was attractive as Akari and it wouldn’t seem far fetched to see her with Kato. 

 

His eyes settled back on her face, catching on the scar on her eyebrow before coming out of tunnel vision. Sakura was scrutinizing him just the same, her eyes slightly narrowed and a stubborn tilt to her jaw that he knew quite well. She was rising to a challenge. She was daring him to give a single reason they shouldn’t use that cover. 

 

He had several, actually, most of them regarding propriety and decorum. The duty to protect her he had taken on as her sensei all those years ago. But somehow the urge just wasn’t strong enough for him to act on it. This wasn’t the Sakura he had met at the Academy, hung up over the Uchiha boy. He could barely see any traces of the girl he’d known in this person in front of him.

 

Kakashi nodded.

 

“Hatanaka Kato and Akari,” he interrupted whatever discussion had been going on. “Married couples get questioned less on their relationship in a camp like that. Also gives us more of a reason to stick together and roughly eliminates the danger of any of the rogues trying to force themselves on her.”

 

Sakura blinked in surprise at him for a second before a small but nonetheless pleased smile stretched her lips. Kakashi felt a weight lift off his chest. He had failed her in many ways, many times before. He didn’t understand her enough, wasn’t well equipped to help the innocent girl she’d been. 

 

Now things were different. 

 

Kakashi actually knew how to deal with this version of Sakura. It was one that he could respect and support without the overwhelming knowledge that she was completely dependent on him. He could see parts of him reflected on her now in a way that had been impossible back then. Kakashi was finally doing something right. He just hoped he didn’t screw up this time around.

 

The discussion went on, intermittent with more drinks than they probably should be having and various jokes and teasing. Kakashi felt at ease in a way that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He had missed his friends. He had even missed Sakura even though they had never had the camaraderie they were sharing at the moment.

 

She was still a part of Team 7, she was still pack . In a way, he hadn’t felt this close and comfortable with Team 7 in a long, long time. Despite his anxieties of having her anywhere near a mission such as this, he was glad for her companionship.

 

“You’re too recognisable, Kakashi!” Sakura exclaimed suddenly, her finger pointed accusingly at his nose as she reached around Genma to try and poke him. “The mask, the silver hair, the Sharingan . You’re basically the worst ninja to go undercover to ever ninja.” 

 

The others snickered, Yugao going as far as snorting on her laughter.

 

“I was trained by Usui himself on the art of disguise, Sakura.” He raised an eyebrow at her flushed face. “Besides, I don’t usually wear my mask when undercover.”

 

Sakura gasped outrageously, her finger still pointing at his face but now she was heavily leaning against Genma.

 

“Wait a minute, does that mean… no!” Sakura suddenly got up, her voice rising in an incredulous cry as she smacked her hand on the table, making their drinks clatter. “Everyone has seen your face? No! Even Team Boar?!”

 

She turned her still accusing finger towards the other table where Snail carefully raised his hand.

 

“We haven’t, Wolf-sensei,” the man said timidly, his cheeks flushed from alcohol and the attention.

 

“I have,” Boar said, extracting another outrageous gasp from Sakura as the older man shrugged. “I don’t see what’s all the big deal. He looks just like everybody else.”

 

“No, no, I don’t wanna know like this!” Sakura smacked her hands on top of her ears and shook her head slightly before going back to looking at Kakashi to glare at him. It was almost impossible to hold back his laugh.

 

“Maa, maa, Sakura-chan. There’s no need to overreact.” He raised his hands in an attempt at peace but laughter still showed in his voice.

 

“ He doesn’t see what’s the big deal.” Sakura shook her head again, her expression now comically horrified. “Months. We spent months trying to catch you off guard. We had a thousand ryo worth bet. ”

 

“So you’ve told me.” Kakashi nodded sagely and tried to console her with a sympathetic look. “You’ll win the bet tomorrow, if that’s any consolation.”

 

The prospect of finally finding out seemed to horrify her even further before satisfaction and something impish quickly crossed over her features. Sakura pointed another quick finger at him and Kakashi couldn’t quite hide the full body flinch that issued. Genma chortled. Sakura narrowed her eyes.

 

“I’m dying your hair black,” she announced. 

 

There was a beat of silence and then their team was laughing so hard, Yugao fell sideways on Tenzo’s lap. Kakashi just stared at Sakura.

 

“Why?” he asked, brain too slow to formulate more.

 

“Because!” Sakura accused more than answered, chin tilted up, eyes narrowed. “You fucking owe me!”

 

Kakashi had started a million thought fragments on why that wasn’t fair or even a good idea but then Yugao was speaking loudly and fast about how it would be the perfect disguise and he would just look so handsome and surely there would be enough supplies at the outpost to help with future undercover missions. Kakashi knew all hope was lost when Boar—fucking Boar, he knew the guy never liked him but that night was being something else—butted in.

 

“There’s hair dye and a bunch of other stuff at the changing room upstairs.”

 

Kakashi sighed in defeat but it was mostly for show. He had been planning on dying his hair darker to better blend in, it was common for long term missions like this. While he generally prefered wigs, ninja-grade hair dye was better suited for missions where he’d have to stay in character for a long period of time.

 

Team Ro made their way to the upper floor carrying their bags and another bottle of liquor that was almost halfway finished.

 

Yugao and Sakura immediately set about gathering the supplies while Kakashi sat on the bench in the changing room in front of the sinks and mirrors. Keiichi sat next to him while Genma perched himself on the counter and Tenzo swayed slightly on the spot, humming a song he didn’t recognise under his breath.

 

“They don’t have black,” Yugao complained.

 

“Grab the darkest one, I guess,” Sakura answered, then raised an eyebrow. “Scissors? We’re cutting his hair?”

 

“Yep,” Yugao answered at the same time Kakashi cut in, “No.”

 

“Whatever, do it when we’re finished with the dye.” Sakura waved him and Yugao off and started her work. Kakashi had to stop her five times to sneeze, his eyes constantly watering because of the smell of the chemicals. 

 

“What about the scar?” Genma asked, smirking around his senbon at his friend's predicament. Kakashi made sure to send him a filthy glare. 

 

“Lost it in on the mission that made me tokujo.” Kakashi sighed and most certainly did not pout. “An eyepatch is better in this situation than contacts.”

 

“And when did you two lovebirds get married?” Genma prompted, most definitely teasing now as they tossed the booze between the six of them. 

 

“Late spring,” Sakura answered. “About six months ago so it’s not weird if we can’t answer some questions about the other immediately.” 

 

“Where did you go on your honeymoon?” Genma only laughed at the deadpan look Kakashi shot his way.

 

“Iron.” Kakashi didn’t offer any more details.

 

“A bit chilly isn’t it?”

 

“Akari likes the cold.” Kakashi caught the clumsy throw Tenzo performed and was thankful when Sakura and Yugao finally stepped back. He immediately took another swig of the bottle.

 

The six of them continued sharing the drink and laughing for the next while. Kakashi’s vision was hazy around the edges and he just conformed himself with the fact that it was better for him to just nod along to whatever they said. 

 

Yugao found a few boxes filled with things to help with undercover missions and quickly pulled out a pair of wedding rings. Kakashi had briefly made the mistake of saying no ninja would be caught dead with one but he was quickly shut down by Sakura—”Akari doesn’t participate on field missions, she would definitely wear one. And you bet your ass she would make Kato do it too”. 

 

Surprise at her assertiveness and the alcohol cursing through his veins made him slide the golden band on his pocket to wear in the morning without further complains. 

 

Genma was loudly going over a recounting of a mission he had with Sakura to Kiri, a confusing tale of near death experiences and tasting foreign fruits that made Sakura throw the bottle especially hard at him, while Yugao filled the chart accounting everything they had used. She turned her head towards him, purple hair wildly flying around her face.

 

“Go ahead and wash it, senpai.” Yugao smiled dopily at him and Sakura shot two thumbs up, both of them leaning slightly against the other for balance. Kakashi felt affection curl inside his chest for the two heathens . They were his teammates, after all.

 

Kakashi took another gulp and then tossed the bottle towards Keiichi before making his way to the sink. He ducked his head and quickly scrubbed at his hair, the sound of the water drowning the conversation going on around him. He turned the tap off but before he could straighten up, Genma nudged him with his foot.

 

“The dye is still there.” 

 

“Fuck you.” Kakashi went back to scrubbing.

 

When he emerged again from the sink, Yugao was immediately by his side, gently guiding him to sit on the bench again so she could reach him better.

 

“C’mon now, senpai,” she said. “Let’s take care of that mop of yours.” 

 

Kakashi endured the first few snips, the scowl on his face deepening as the hair caught on his shirt and mask. He’d have to wash these. Yugao’s uncharacteristic forwardness had surprised him enough that he didn’t bother fighting her.

 

She had always been somewhat deferent towards him and while she was still calling him senpai and the slightest of blushes hadn’t left her cheeks, she didn’t seem as affected as she usually was. Of course, after that one night months after Hayate they hadn’t had much interaction and the little that did happen she had settled her crush enough so that it was hardly noticeable. But still, something felt off.

 

Whatever it was, he was sure it had to do with Tenzo, who by this point should be singing loudly and hugging everybody within reach, was instead simply listening to the conversation around him, his scowl matching Kakashi’s as he glared at the floor. Kakashi wondered what had happened there.

 

Yugao seemed to be almost done but Kakashi had had enough. The newly dyed hair was prickling so much through his mask and shirt that he could focus on nothing other than the itchiness. He chanced a glance towards Sakura. She was sitting next to Keiichi now, animatedly discussing something that made her perform great gestures with her hands that almost made her fall off the bench.

 

Maybe it wasn’t the big reveal she had been hoping for, but Kakashi had long since accepted the fact that she was Team Ro and it was torture to sit like that for so long while being slowly smothered by hair.

 

“Alright, that’s it.” He leaned his head back just as Yugao had sniped a part of his fringe off. She squawked in protest but stopped when she noticed he was beginning to divest himself of his outer armour and then his shirt. 

 

There was a loud, dramatic gasp from Sakura’s direction and a dull thud as he pulled his undershirt over his head, taking care to not let any of the hair there fall on him. Yugao hummed in appreciation and got another quick snip in before stepping back, unbothered by his glare.

 

“Ta-da!” she exclaimed.

 

Genma laughed, as did Tenzo and Keiichi but Kakashi avoided looking at Sakura. Some of the old anxiety was creeping in, making his breath shorten. It felt extremely vulnerable to be bared like this, like he was walking around the village naked but he knew that was stupid. This was his team. It was Sakura. 

 

He trusted her.

 

Kakashi moved to the mirror. Genma was laughing at something and tried to reach his head for a ruffle but Kakashi swiftly dodged, still with his wits about him even as drunk as he was. He leaned heavily on the counter when the movement proved to be too much for his balance.

 

Bleary eyes stared back at him in the mirror, one dark grey and the other dizzyingly red. He closed Obito’s eye.

 

His hair was a dark brown, as close to black as possible. It was cropped short on the back and sides and combed forward so a fringe fell slightly over his scarred side. Without his mask, there would be no way he could be recognised. Kakashi nodded and admitted to himself that the girls had done a good job.

 

“You alright there, princess?” Genma called and Kakashi finally turned to see that Sakura was sitting crossed legged on the floor. He figured the noise from before had been her falling from her seat and a small, unbidden smile came to him at the thought. 

 

Her green eyes immediately snapped to it before her already flushed cheeks darkened further. 

 

Right. Usually a smile like that would have been hidden but now it was there in plain sight for her to see. Kakashi cleared his throat and moved back to his seat on the bench, stealing the bottle from Keiichi before sitting down. 

 

He was glad that the rest of the team had taken upon themselves to move on from the spectacle when Sakura didn’t answer Genma. She got up slowly, eyes darting all over his face before stopping to glare at Genma briefly and then Yugao, as if it was somehow their fault that he had shown her his face. 

 

She received the bottle multiple times, always taking huge gulps that would have sent lesser men puking into the nearest toilet but never engaging the conversation around her. Kakashi for his part had slowly started to relax, the copious amount of alcohol in his system preventing him from staying tense too long. 

 

Sakura had yet to spend more than eleven seconds without looking at him. 

 

“Alright, Petal, you’re making the man blush.” Genma teased, throwing an arm around her shoulders now that she was leaning next to him on the counter, directly in front of Kakashi. “That’s usually his job here on Team Ro, you know? He takes off his mask, his two ‘little kouhai’ blush up a storm.”

 

He wasn’t blushing. He had merely grown flushed from all the alcohol. Fuck, he already missed his mask. 

 

Sakura only waved a dismissive hand in the air.

 

“Shush, I’m thinking…” she trailed off, narrowing her eyes slightly at him from across the room.

 

In a fluid motion that surprised everyone in the changing room, Sakura stepped from under Genma’s arm and crossed the room before grabbing his face between her hands.

 

Kakashi’s eyes widened comically as Keiichi gasped. Tenzo, Yugao and Genma chortled in the background.

 

“You look so…” Sakura made his face go this way and that way, squishing his cheeks and keeping him from moving or reacting. “...familiar.”

 

It seemed like she suddenly realised what she had been doing, because she widened her own eyes and stepped back before clearing her throat. With a slightly accusatory glare towards him, she took the bottle from his limp hands and took a large gulp before sitting down on his other side. A more than respectful distance between them.

 

The others had already moved on, diving into a heated argument about something inane but Sakura was still staring ahead, drinking generously from the bottle.

 

It wasn’t that the action had shocked him because it had been Sakura. He had seen how she was with the people she was closest to. Quick to make them laugh, uncaring of personal space or societal boundaries. Being physical wasn’t exactly anything new for Sakura towards her closest friends. It was just shocking that she considered him to be one of those.

 

She had seemed so bashful afterwards, like she had done something wrong, something that would make him mad. 

 

Belatedly, he realised how that was his fault. The last time they had been that close, he had lashed out at her. Granted, she had caught him in an extremely vulnerable position, intruded on the private moment of his breakdown but he could see looking back now how that could have prevented her from being so carefree with him like she was with others.

 

Kakashi wondered at that. How much of their distance had been because of him and how much at fault he was for not being there for her when she needed him. Sitting there between his teammates, the people he trusted the most, Kakashi found himself wanting to have that with her.

 

He wanted to not have to worry if he was overstepping some boundaries, he wanted her to be at ease next to him and trust him as much as he trusted her. He wanted her to feel like he truly was her teammate. Her pack.

 

The next time her eyes sought his face, Kakashi made sure to catch her gaze.

 

“You, uh,” he cleared his throat, uncomfortable now that he had her full attention. “You’ve kind of already seen me without my mask on.”

 

Sakura blinked at him, passing the bottle without paying attention to the action when Genma came over complaining she was hogging the thing. A couple of seconds went by without any more reaction from her.

 

“That’s why I look familiar.” Kakashi nodded slightly, raised his eyebrows a bit and smiled politely when she still didn’t say anything.

 

“Oh, no . No, no, no, no.” Sakura shook her head, the movement gaining speed with each second until she was vehemently shaking her head, her arms following the negative motion. “ You fucking bastard!”

 

Kakashi chuckled sheepishly and raised his hands to try and appease her. Maybe this wasn’t the best strategy to get her to come out of her shell again.

 

“Sukea!” The yell echoed around the room. 

 

Sakura surprised him further when instead of pummeling him to the ground in her anger, she threw her head back and laughed. A good long laugh that seemed to come from deep inside her. When she looked back at him, she had to brush tears from her eyes.

 

“You absolutely cannot tell Sasuke and Naruto that!” She pointed a finger at him but she was still smiling. It took a second for Kakashi to realise he was mirroring the grin. “Promise me.”

 

“I promise,” he said when she raised her eyebrows expectantly at him.

 

Sakura nodded once, trying to school her face into complete seriousness but failing as another snicker assaulted her body. Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh with her.

 

“Alright, kiddos, I think it’s time for bed,” Genma said, shaking the empty bottle in his hands mournfully. “Whisky’s over.”

 

They moved as a unit, the girls going to shower in the communal showers while the others brought their stuff to one of the rooms and set about their sleeping bags. Kakashi was the last one to leave the showers.

 

The alcohol had settled some and he wasn’t as thoroughly intoxicated as before but it still made his belly pleasantly warm as he entered their shared room. It was large enough that they didn’t have to touch their sleeping bags but small enough that there wasn’t more than a metre between each of them. 

 

The last sleeping bag was the only one left unoccupied, the one closest to the floor to ceiling wood windows. It was Kakashi’s preferred space while sleeping on missions, that way any surprise attacks would hit him first and not his teammates. Tenzo took place on the sleeping bag closest to the door for the same reasons. While it shouldn’t come as a surprise, something warmed Kakashi’s chest when he noticed Sakura had taken the sleeping bag closest to the window after his.

 

She was Team Ro’s captain for a while after all.

 

Genma snored slightly from besides Sakura and next to him was Keiichi, Yugao taking the sleeping bag closest to Tenzo’s. Kakashi finally allowed himself to relax.

 

He was still too keyed up to fall asleep, the alcohol buzzing through his system and the pre-mission apprehension standing in the way of sleep. He tried meditating but failed miserably at keeping his mind blank. Then, he tried to focus on his breathing and the ones from his teammates. It was then that he realised Sakura was still awake as well.

 

Her breathing wasn’t erratic but it was still very different from what he remembered of their time together in Team 7. That could surely be attributed to a change of habits while growing up but the inconsistency of it gave her away. 

 

Kakashi briefly wondered if the thoughts keeping her awake were the same as his before turning his focus to steadying his breath. He must have fallen into a meditative state because the next thing he knew, a rustling sound was making him blink both his eyes open.

 

He quickly asserted there weren’t any imminent attacks and then moved his head to look at where the noise was coming from. It was Sakura, ruffling through Genma’s pack. He hadn’t heard her moving all the way across the floor.

 

She grabbed something from within and then moved towards the windows, sliding open just enough so she could slip through. 

 

Kakashi considered leaving her to her privacy for a few beats. She probably just wanted some fresh air. Kakashi got up in silent feet and followed her outside.

 

Sakura was sitting on the slanted roof with her back to him, both her legs drawn up and her elbows resting on her knees. Her hair was out of its usual braid, hanging in loose waves that stopped at her waist. The smell of cigarette smoke attacked his senses almost immediately.

 

She didn’t startle when the windows clicked shut behind him, only turned her head slightly so she could look at him through the corner of her eye.

 

“Couldn’t sleep either?” She offered him a tiny smile and Kakashi took it as an invitation to sit down next to her. He stretched one leg in front of him and folded the other to lean his elbow against.

 

“Aren’t you going to share?” He asked instead of answering. 

 

Sakura looked surprised for a moment before she offered him the cigarette with a slight smirk. Kakashi had gone to sleep with his undershirt on, his mask pulled high but he didn’t hesitate to lower it to take a drag. Sakura politely looked up at the moon instead of gawking at him like before.

 

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said when he passed the cigarette back to her. The practised ease with which she took a long drag made him raise an eyebrow at her.

 

“I didn’t know you smoked.” Kakashi chuckled when her cheeks flushed slightly in response. Sakura just shrugged so Kakashi pressed forward. “I never smelt it on you.” 

 

“I don’t have it as a habit to smoke around the village. Unless I’m drunk,” she said after a pause, shooting him a sardonic smile and offering up the cigarette again. “These are Genma’s.”

 

“Aa.” Kakashi blew the smoke up towards the full moon and nodded a bit. “His secret mission stash.”

 

Sakura laughed, keeping her voice low like his so they wouldn’t wake their teammates inside. 

 

“So you know about that too.” She stretched her legs in front of her and put her hands behind her, leaning her weight against them so her face was more illuminated by the moonlight like she was basking in it as if she was sunbathing.

 

“Can I ask you a question?” The words were falling from his mouth before he was even aware his tongue had formed them. His tone of voice was more serious now, and he didn’t miss the slight tension that made her muscles tighten minutely.

 

“If I can ask one in return,” Sakura countered and he wasn’t surprised. She had always been quick on her feet. Kakashi nodded.

 

He wanted to ask her many questions, if he was being honest with himself. He wanted to know if she’d forgiven him for being such a shitty teacher. If she blamed him for their team leaving—he certainly did. He wanted to know if she could get past the resentment she surely held towards him.

 

Kakashi couldn’t get those questions past his lips. They formed like a knot on his throat but died like ash on his tongue and Kakashi could only frown at his own inability. He was still kind of drunk. The least he could do was blurt what was really on his mind like a good overly honest drunk.

 

“Me first.” Sakura smiled slightly at him, seemingly reading his mind and his silence. She seemed to have realised the sudden serious turn of his thoughts but still managed to surprise him with her question. “Why did you start smoking?”

 

Kakashi stared at her for a moment, incredulous that she had chosen such an inane question. Then he realised what she was doing, and Kakashi was left breathless with the amount of appreciation he had for his teammate. Sakura most certainly knew some of the questions lurking behind his head. She could see his guilt and his hesitation and just like that day on her jounin graduation, she had chosen to move past it. 

 

She didn’t want to keep dwelling on the past and while that went directly against Kakashi’s nature, he found himself wanting to let that part of their shared past go as well. If only to follow her lead.

 

So he told her the full story.

 

Kakashi told her that it all started with Asuma back when he was twelve and Kakashi ten. The two weren’t exactly close but Genma was both of their best friends—or really, as much as he had a best friend at the time—and he had taken up the habit too. Years later, when Asuma had left Konoha and Kakashi and Genma had been sucked into ANBU, Genma was on his fourth try on quitting and Kakashi had been trying to help him. 

 

Only Genma had been sneaking out of their ANBU barracks at night to smoke without Usui finding out and Kakashi had told him off when he found out. The fight escalated into something so intense and not at all about the cigarettes that the two didn’t speak with each other for two whole weeks. 

 

Usui was the one to force the two of them into speaking terms again, but Kakashi was still extremely salty about the whole situation and had taken up smoking as a petty way to show Genma how annoying he had been. He would wake up early and blow smoke in Genma’s room through his ventilation system, smudge tobacco on his friend’s underwear and shirts and he made sure to always blow smoke on his face whenever they talked. 

 

It took Genma a few weeks to quit for good and Kakashi’s sensitive nose appreciated it. The two never spoke of it but the next year, Kakashi’s birthday present had been a nose clip.

 

“Okay,” Sakura chuckled slightly, still leaning most of her weight on her hands as she looked up at him. “What’s your question then?”

 

Kakashi didn’t hesitate to turn the question on her.

 

“Why did you start?” he asked around the last dregs of the cigarette. Neither of them lit another one.

 

“My first mission as a chunin,” Sakura said simply, shocking Kakashi. “My client’s brother, Shinsei, is a smoker so he offered me a drag. To calm my nerves, I think, or to show off how much of a bad boy he is.” Sakura rolled her eyes. “It’s not exactly a habit I endorse or even want to have so I keep to just one when I’m drunk or needing the nicotine rush.” Sakura shrugged. 

 

“ Is a smoker?” Kakashi questioned and Sakura narrowed her eyes at him before answering.

 

“We keep in touch.”

 

“I’m sure you do.” Kakashi couldn’t help but snicker when she drove a pointy elbow into his ribs. 

 

They sat in silence for a while longer, both observing the forest around them and what they could see of the full moon. The alcohol had made his body loose and his mind pliant and the companionship had calmed his thoughts enough that he felt he could maybe go to sleep if he tried again.

 

Kakashi turned towards Sakura to tell her they should go back inside when he noticed that she had been slightly scratching at the scar on her eyebrow.

 

“How did you get that?” It was a dangerous question. One that if turned towards him, he wasn’t sure he would be able to answer without shutting down completely. So he was surprised when she huffed a tiny laugh and turned twinkling eyes towards him.

 

“I fell on a rock.” Kakashi blinked at her.

 

“You’re kidding.” Sakura shook her head and laughed again, still mindful to keep the volume down.

 

“I promise the whole story is more exciting than that but yeah, basically, I fell on a rock on my first mission as a chunin.” She was smiling up at the moon then and Kakashi was suddenly reminded that he had been there for that.

 

“The Kusa nin.” Kakashi was blinking up at the moon as well, trying to remember that specific wound on her from over four years ago. All he could recall was that she had been only in her chest bindings and leggings and covered in blood.

 

“Yep. That bitch kicked me in the back and I fell head first to the forest ground.” Sakura snickered slightly and shot him an amused glance. “It was even a tiny one. Sharp but tiny. It’s so embarrassing.”

 

Kakashi chuckled with her at the absurdity of what she was saying. He knew she had almost died on that mission. Both that and she almost lost all of her teammates but she could still joke about it, like the scar didn’t represent a traumatic event in her life. He appreciated her levity as much as he worried about it.

 

He was just beginning to realise how much she took the whole moving forward no looking back thing to heart. She didn’t even seem particularly bothered by the fact as she told her story. Kakashi had to wonder if that was a good trait to build or not. While he could admit to himself that the way he held on to everything wasn’t exactly good, he had seen many ninja that had pushed their emotions too far away and the inevitable blow up that happened. He could only trust that Sakura would know her limits.

 

Sakura yawned hugely then, the noise louder than their conversation so far and they only blinked at the other in surprise. Even with only the moonlight to see her, he noticed the blush that spread across her cheeks.

 

“We should get some sleep,” he said, amusement coating his words. “We have a big day tomorrow.”

 

Sakura nodded and he made to get up but she stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

 

“Kakashi, wait. About tomorrow.” Sakura worried her bottom lip with her teeth in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness and withdrew her hand. “Are we really going forward with our cover story?”

 

Kakashi frowned slightly and nodded slowly.

 

“Unless you’re not comfortable with it,” he said at last.

 

“That’s not it!” Sakura tilted her head slightly. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with it. I don’t want to overstep any boundaries between us and make you uncomfortable.”

 

Kakashi wanted to smile at her concerns but kept himself from doing it. He knew where she was coming from. These types of mid to long term missions tended to blur some lines that in their case couldn’t ever be blurred. But he knew it was the best plan of action and that the two of them could sell it much better than if they decided to go with her and Asuma as a fake couple. 

 

Not only did they have a natural chemistry that came with years of knowing the other, Kakashi looked younger than he really was, especially without the mask and with his hair dark, and Sakura could easily pass for a couple of years older than her eighteen years. Asuma in comparison quite looked his age.

 

He wouldn’t lie and say he was completely okay with it but it was also something he had done before and by the way she was making sure to check in with him, it looked like she had experience in these types of undercover missions as well.

 

“We’re professionals.” Kakashi made sure she was looking at him before continuing. “We can fake whatever we can get away with and set out our characters to be extremely private to keep things from escalating too much. A check in system might be a good idea to have.”

 

Sakura nodded, her eyes completely serious now that they were talking work. 

 

“Two scratches whenever we feel uncomfortable and need the other to step back. Hand holding and kisses on the cheek in public, longer embraces whenever we’re in a small group or about to be walked upon.” Sakura suggested everything with an utilitarian precision that came with practice, the kind you get after leading many missions before. It made any anxiety Kakashi was feeling about the situation disappear. 

 

“Try out the scratches, it has to be discrete and natural.” Kakashi offered her his arm and she immediately closed her hand around his forearm. Her hand was slight and he could feel its warmth even through her glove as she slightly scratched his own gloved arm, unhurried and making it look like an absent minded action. He returned the gesture with his other hand.

 

“Tomorrow as we walk there we should practice standing closer together,” Sakura said, her brow slightly furrowed in thought. “We can’t be sure how far they send their scouts, as soon as we leave here we have to be in character.”

 

“Agreed.” Kakashi got up, feeling relieved that they were on the same page and that she was taking such a strategic approach to their predicament.

 

He offered her a hand and she took it with a small smile.

 

“I’m glad we hashed this out.” She squeezed his hand and leaned on her tiptoes to press her lips to his uncovered cheek. “Let’s try and get some sleep.”

 

And then she was slipping inside.

 

Kakashi followed quickly behind her, his body in autopilot. He secured the window with a seal and climbed inside his sleeping bag while keeping his mind carefully blank. He fell asleep that night with a slight frown, mask pulled securely up the bridge of his nose.

 

His cheek tingling was the last sensation he could feel before he gave in to sleep.

.

 

.

 

.

Notes:

*sigh* my babies are just too cute.

It's nice to be able to write the dichotomy between Sakura and Kakashi and how they deal with stuff. Despite them both putting up a front constantly with Kakashi's smiles and Sakura's borderline aggressive politeness, they react differently to trauma in a way. Kakashi misdirects the attention of whoever is looking at him. He smiles his crinkled eye smile, looks and sound aloof, hides behind his mask and Icha Icha. But he /feels/. He feels a lot and he feels deeply and it's an ongoing thing, hence why he goes to the cenotaph so much. He doesn't let himself forget. Sakura on the other hand, while looking as if she has more of a hold of her emotions, pushes everything away. Inner helps her compartmentalise all of her emotions and memories in tiny little boxes until those boxes inevitably overflow. So she assaults a nurse at the hospital (remember Momoe?) and blows up with the Hokage.

Speaking of the way ninja deal with stuff, this chapter is a prime example of it. I think in a lot of fics people forget that it's actually /taught/ in the Academy (it's in the Shinobi Handbook and all) that ninja constantly seek solace in vices. Alcohol, gambling and women, I think it was what it says to be careful of. Somehow, in most of the fics I read (I'm saying most because there are some that get this right on point, imo) only foreign ninja, the "bad guys" seem to adhere to that. It's funny like, they can write about the character going to seduce a ninja from another country that is always on the bar, but somehow in Konoha people are super prudish about sex. Yeah, no. Ninja in Konoha also have coping mechanisms and they do involve gambling, alcohol and sex. And, yes, they will partake in that /specially/ during highly stressful situations such as this one.

I battled a lot with how I wanted Kakashi to show his face and in the end I went with this almost anticlimactic approach to it. I have a few different opinions on how I'd like the "big reveal" to happen and they vary a lot but I felt like this was the best for this fic since they'll be going undercover together and it makes no sense to have a dramatic moment of reveal when they gotta prepare whatever they can before making contact. Also, I hope I could capture well what Kakashi feels in regards to wearing his mask and all and that you guys kinda notice that this was a continuation of his thoughts when he was in his father's home to get the scroll the night of Sakura's jounin graduation. Most of what he feels was explained there and I felt it was okay to just put tiny reminders of that instead of going over it again. Ugh, I always get so anxious while writing Kakashi lol.

I hope you enjoyed this borderline silly chapter with hints of seriousness sprinkled on top lmao :) Let me know what your favourite part was and I'll see you next week xx

p.s. I don't know if I ever told you guys this but I get SO FKN ANXIOUS every time I update that I will barely sleep waiting for your reaction lmao it's fucking ridiculous how keyed up I get. And this semester I took a Mandarin class on Saturdays so I was always so fucking exhausted in the morning xD Thank fuck that's over now and I can be my anxious self in peace.

p.p.s This isn't in any way related to the story so you guys can skip ahead to the review button without reading it, it's just a personal freakout lol I mentioned a few chapters back that I was toying with the idea of creating a YT channel, right? Well, it's happening. Soon. I know it's a bit random but I'm gonna start by posting videos playing horror games while doing commentaries on character analysis and shit like that bc I find it interesting af. I decided (mostly after reading all of your comments the last time we talked about this) that I will be completely honest of where I came from and who I am and will regularly say that I write and enjoy fanfiction. Fuck haters. It's 2020, I think it's time we stop being ashamed of what we're passionate about. The only problem is that I'm FREAKING OUT when it comes to finding a name lol I wanted something short-ish and catchy and that kinda goes w the horror vibe that I love but I absolutely suck at this. Lol, I don't even know why I'm saying this all it's just that you guys are so fkn supportive and amazing, I can't help but be completely honest and overshare >.< I hope y'all will be interested in seeing that kind of content from me and that we can find new platforms to interact :)

Chapter 33: Sairyu

Notes:

Happy Fire Friday!!!

I still have exactly ten minutes of Friday over here so, yep, we're all just gonna collectively pretend this was uploaded earlier in the day. Lol, I'm sorry this is coming out so late, I was having some super weird dissociations throughout the beginning of the week and basically just finished this 10k word chapter in the past couple of days. I think I'm halfway dead at this point xD Thanks, A, for holding my hand and keeping my head above water, as per ush.

Anyway, enjoy our slowburn as it starts to burn a bit hotter ;)

Sakura woke up the next day with an irritating headache pounding away at her sinus. Her chakra seemed to already be working at getting rid of it even as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with a quiet yawn. 

 

The closed window in the room kept her from checking the position of the sun but by how tired she still felt, Sakura didn’t think it was too long after dawn. The others around her had just woken up as well and their moving had cut through her sleep.

 

Usually in Konoha she was never one to wake up too early if she didn’t have any training to do but during missions it had become second nature to be instantly awake as soon as she opened her eyes. It only happened that the cold wasn’t something she had experience in waking up to.

 

Sakura sighed discontentedly and set about tidying up her things.

 

Her teammates knew her well enough not to engage her too much first thing and she only got a brief squeeze on the shoulder from Genma as they all moved around the room before filtering out either for the showers or the mess hall.

 

Sakura chose food.

 

Boar was already downstairs sitting on the table with Snail while Starling slaved away in the kitchen. Sakura shot them a tiny wave and moved towards the unfortunate member of their team to see if she could help him with breakfast. It was a surprisingly full breakfast with miso soup, rice, eggs and fish. She supposed there was an upside to having a decent sized outpost like this one. They were well stocked.

 

Genma made plates for both of them and held them with one hand as he steered her with the other towards their table.

 

“You should eat double today, Pinky,” he said as they scarfed down their meal. Sakura rolled her eyes at him.

 

“I don’t need those extra calories, Jiji, we’ll be walking most days and not spending chakra.” Sakura smirked at him. “Besides, I already robbed you guys of all your chocolate last night.”

 

“You sure did,” Yugao said, dropping next to Sakura with her arm heavy around her shoulders. “But you won’t actually take away our chocolate will you, Wolfie-chan? Not when your poor teammates won’t have any access to more chocolate for the foreseeable future.”

 

Sakura laughed at her senpai’s puppy dog eyes and conceded defeat when Genma joined in. A few moments later, Keiichi, Tenzo and Kakashi joined them.

 

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her when she blinked stupidly at him for a few seconds when he sat down. He had already showered, his freshly cut hair still damp as it fell over his eyepatch covered Sharingan. 

 

She had looked at his face enough the night before to have completely committed it to memory but it was still somehow jarring in the daylight to see him. The straight line of his nose, the slightly more supple bottom lip, the beauty spot on his chin.

 

The man had a beauty spot, Inner still raved inside her head, how unfair is that.

 

The answer was, pretty unfair. Inner smiled ruefully before scoffing and Sakura went back to observing her teammate. 

 

He was already wearing Kato’s clothes consisting of ANBU pants that seemed outdated and slightly more snug and worn down than the ones he had been using the day before, a dark green kimono-style vest with fingerless leather gloves that covered his forearms and black boots. 

 

He had on a few pouches and a katana strapped to his back and Sakura had to marvel at just how different he looked. She wondered just how thorough Usui’s lessons on disguise had been and then remembered the masterful way he had worn Sukea, Sakura figured he really would have no problem with this mission. 

 

Sakura was no beginner in undercover missions herself. Very early on with Team Ro, her ability to create her shishou’s untraceable genjutsu that could change any aspect of her appearance had been capitalized on. Lying and subterfuge had come scarily easy for her after being raised like she did and with Inner’s help.

 

She felt her confidence in this mission boost.

 

Having more sustenance and her morning dose of green tea, Sakura felt marginally better. Enough to engage in the conversation around her as she finished eating.

 

“You should get ready, Sakura,” Kakashi said quietly from the other side of the table and Sakura had to consciously fight the urge to look down at his mouth to see how the words formed there. She had to get over seeing his face. Soon . “Asuma should be here soon.”

 

Sakura nodded and quickly got up to take her plate to the kitchen were Snail was slaving away washing the dishes. 

 

“You’re right.” She smiled slightly. “I’ll be back soon.”

 

She moved easily through her normal routine of getting ready for a mission; she took a relaxing shower but didn’t wet her hair, dried herself up and moved to put on her clothes.

 

She was wearing her favourite black pants, the hakama-style one that she usually wore around the village on her days off, and a black bra that she felt was more suited for an almost civilian doctor instead of chest wrappings. She stood in the changing room, bare feet with her hair loose down her back as she carefully applied makeup in the mirror and barely paid any attention when the door opened.

 

Asuma and Yugao walked in, the woman talking with a more subdued smile than what was normal for her since Asuma wasn’t exactly someone she knew well. They seemed to be talking about Asuma’s disguise but stopped when they noticed her.

 

“Oh, sorry, kid,” Asuma said, averting his eyes to the ceiling. “I can come back later.”

 

Sakura huffed a laugh as she turned back to the mirror to continue applying her carmine red lipstick. 

 

“How cute of you, Asuma-san.” Sakura exchanged a look with Yugao through the mirror and fought back a smirk when the man cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “I’d never taken you for a prude.”

 

It was a comeback she would have used with someone she was more familiar with but she had to break him out of the mentality that she was a kid and fast. She knew he had referred to her as that more as a reflex than him thinking she was a child but still. He’d have to get used to some things pretty quickly for this mission to work the way they wanted to.

 

“I can help you with shaving your head, if you want, Sarutobi-san,” Yugao offered, already moving towards the cabinet that contained most of the supplies for undercover missions. 

 

“Asuma is just fine, you two.” Asuma scratched the back of his head as he reluctantly made eye contact with Sakura through the mirror. “Though I guess you should start calling me Asao. Shirotori Asao.”

 

“Ah, Asao-kun!” Sakura turned around to smile brightly at him, barely registering Genma and Kakashi entering. “The best man at my wedding. My best friend.”

 

She came to stand in front of him and lightly patted his chest, her happy smile still in place. A part of her wanted to laugh at his dumbstruck look but she squished it down. 

 

“Stop playing with the poor bastard, Princess,” Genma laughed as he passed them, clapping a heavy hand on Asuma’s shoulder as he went to sit on the bench behind him.

 

“I’m not playing,” Sakura said, dropping the smile and shrugging unapologetically. “He needs to be comfortable around me if we’re to pull this off. We don’t really know what we’ll be walking into, our disguises have to be perfect. ”

 

“Kid’s—uh, I mean,” Asuma looked contrite at her but soon moved past his blunder. “ Sakura is right. There isn’t any room for error here.”

 

Sakura nodded approvingly at him and moved to the locker that held her pack to select her clothes. From behind her, Asuma was already divesting himself of his jounin uniform to properly shave his beard and pass an electric hair clipper through his hair. She was happy to see he barely hesitated before doing so in front of her.

 

Kakashi was on her side, selecting things he would take and things he’d leave behind on the locker. It was weird that she could see her approval reflected on his features so plainly but Sakura didn’t let herself linger on it for too long.

 

She pulled on a tight long sleeved black shirt over her head and reached for the simple grey hoodie she had packed. She’d probably have to put it away around midday when the sun would be at its peak but for now, she’d been chilly ever since she parted ways with her warm bedroll and she didn’t want to feel any more cold. 

 

Sakura pulled her hair up in a ponytail, secured her medical pouch around her hips and turned to sit at the bench so she could pull on her boots. Asuma was almost ready and they continued talking about their covers and different strategies until they were all looking at each other expectantly. 

 

Sakura took a deep breath and put the fake wedding band on her left ring finger. Kakashi pulled the cutoff finger of his glove back until she could see his own shining there. Sakura nodded. Asuma put his hitai-ate inside his locker.

 

Asuma had completely changed from his jounin self, with no beard and hair in a short buzz cut. There was a fang dangling on his pierced ear and a dark blue get up similar to Kakashi’s, only he was carrying a few pouches of kunai instead of a katana.

 

“Let’s move out.” Her tone was slightly too commanding for someone who wouldn’t be captaining the mission but it couldn’t be helped.

 

Even though, ultimately, Kakashi had both the rank and experience to get the title instead of her, she couldn’t exactly turn off four years of giving orders to her teams. She’d have to temper it down a notch, though Kakashi didn’t look miffed at her slight overstep.

 

They went downstairs with their bags and their friends trailing behind them and stepped outside where Sakura paused in the tiny clearing in front of the double doors of the outpost. Without flourish, Sakura bit into her finger, performed the seals—Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram—then smacked her hand on the forest floor. 

 

The small space was instantly filled with smoke and when it cleared, her pack stood in the middle. 

 

Hotaka trotted forward from the circle the wolves made and nudged his snout to the hand she extended in greeting. He sat back on his haunches and waited for instructions.

 

After Sakura explained the situation to them, Hotaka and Kimi stepped forward to greet Kakashi while Kaede came to stand by her side. Sakura rested a hand on the back of his head and scratched his fur.

 

“Maybe you should call Pakkun, Kakashi,” Sakura said to him while the others talked quietly among themselves. “We can have him and Chika undercover in the village and picking up whatever gossip they can on the streets.”

 

The village they were heading towards that morning was about a two-hour track north in a civilian pace. It was small but according to reports had at least an inn and a bar and it was the closest place to where the thieves had set up camp a little further north. Any recruiting they were doing would surely be done there.

 

With a plan in place, the pack took to the trees, Pakkun and Chika looking like normal strays and heading straight north while the others dispersed around them, ready to track and gather intel. Kaede was the last to leave and not before Sakura bumped her forehead to his.

 

“You take care of each other out there,” Genma said, his senbon bobbing nervously on his mouth as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We’ll be around for backup.”

 

“See you soon, Jiji.” Sakura smiled warmly at him while Asuma and Kakashi waved. And then they moved in unison towards the tree line. 

 

It took them about fifteen minutes of painstakingly walking through the thick foliage to reach the dirt road that would lead them straight to the village. They kept a casual string of conversations between them, carefully flashing out their cover story by sharing information about their characters disguised as familiar conversation.

 

“Remember that udon we had at that tiny town in Wave? Ooh, what I wouldn’t give to have some of that right now.”

 

“Asao-kun, maybe you could find some work on a fishing boat. Surely your wind nature would help with that.”

 

“Our priority should be finding a place that will value a medic like you, Akari-chan. Me and Kato will find whatever work we can.”

 

“Kato and I. Stupid. ”

 

“What did you say, mono-eye?”

 

By the time they could see the small village of Sairyu in the distance, a small trickle of rain had begun to fall, making their clothes and hair slightly damp. They had to duck under the canopy of a roadside tea shop just before they entered the village because the rain started picking up. 

 

It was a cosy place, not exactly small but filled to the brim with travellers looking to get out of the rain. Asuma and Kakashi sat with their bags on a small round booth and Sakura went to the counter to order for them.

 

When she sat back down, Asuma and Kakashi were sharing a smoke while deep in conversation about whether green tea or coffee was better and Sakura smiled. She turned the snort she wanted to let out into a feminine giggle and passed the cups of tea around the table.

 

“I knew there was a reason I married you,” Kakashi said, putting his arm on the back of the booth behind her with a smile.

 

A smile that she could see. Fuck, she needed to get over his face. Faster.

 

It was with an embarrassingly little amount of effort that she blushed and slid closer to him. She could keep up with this almost sweet side of Akari that giggled and blushed prettily but, in the end, they were trying to find a job as thieves in the beginnings of a crime syndicate and she couldn’t seem too innocent. 

 

Sakura fit herself against Kakashi’s side snugly, revelling in his warmth after a couple of hours walking in the cold, and stretched her neck so she could kiss his cheek.

 

“I hope that’s not the only reason, husband,” she said, her lips still brushing his warm cheek. Asuma choked on his next inhale of cigarette smoke.

 

Sakura could also admit to herself that she was doing that because she felt Kakashi deserved a little payback. Sure, it wasn’t his fault that his face looked like that , but it was kind of unfair of him to have kept his pretty boy face hidden from her all these years while the other members of Team Ro had all seen it. And Asuma. She wondered who else had seen his face but figured ultimately she did not want to dig deep into that particular train of thought.

 

“Of course not, Akari-chan,” Kakashi replied, not one to be outdone. He let the arm that had been resting on the back of the booth fall around her shoulders and used it to bring her closer, his fingers tracing a warm path on her upper arm over her quickly drying hoodie. He turned his face to look at her then, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. “You can cook like no other.”

 

Kakashi was grinning at her, a private teasing one that sent heat to her cheeks, but his eye, although crinkled in the corner, was steely. He was caught off guard by her attempt at flirting and did not appreciate it. Well, tough . 

 

“There’s no need to rub it in that I have absolutely no skill in the kitchen,” Sakura pouted and forced herself to say.

 

As a matter of fact, she wasn’t a half bad cook. The reason Kakashi was teasing her about it was because in one of Team 7’s earlier missions, she had been tasked with cooking dinner and had gotten distracted by Sasuke who had been cleaning himself up on the river nearby. She accidentally put half the content of the package of salt into their soup that night and was never tasked again with cooking. It had been a fortunate turn of events seeing as Ino and Tenten had often complained about always being put for the task. 

 

Still, Asuma couldn’t know he was being sarcastic and if the—granted, unlikely—event came up that she needed to cook, Asuma could possibly praise her a little too much and… well. Sakura was no chef, despite being a better cook than Kakashi probably expected. 

 

They bantered between them for a while as they drank their tea. Slowly, Asuma started to take longer between each drag of his ever present cigarette and Sakura and Kakashi managed to relax against the other, trying casual touches from time to time. 

 

It was a weird position to be in, all of them. Sakura, while having developed ANBU’s disregard for personal space, wasn't exactly used to being this close to Kakashi and the man himself seemed to alternate between tense and twitchy to relaxed and open. That they had to try drawing their personal lines in the sand and experimenting having this type of interaction in front of Asuma didn’t help any. Especially because the older jounin seemed equal parts alarmed and amused by their interaction.

 

Still, they managed to come to some kind of understanding while they drank their tea. 

 

“There’s a couple of gentlemen near the counter who seemed to be talking about a job nearby,” Sakura said when they were done. She raised an eyebrow at Asuma. “Maybe you can check out if they had something for us?”

 

The two men she had been talking about were ninja but didn’t seem to be higher then genin-level. To tell the truth, Sakura hadn’t really heard them talk about a job, but she had observed that despite their haggard clothes they were wearing gold jewellery. There were few options where they could have gotten those and her money was on the fact that they were thieves.

 

It had been wishful thinking that they could have found their way into the camp with the first establishment they tried. Asuma had come back from talking to the guys with a simple, “They’re locals, not hiring anyone at the moment.” Which sucked, because the rain had only lessened in intensity, not completely stopped, and they couldn’t stay in that tea shop forever, especially if their objective couldn’t be fulfilled there. 

 

They walked quickly and in silence towards the village. Unfortunately, the inn was in the middle of the village and the walk there gave the rain time to pick up again. They were almost completely drenched by the time they got there and the heavy sheets of water kept them from being able to carefully catalogue the village and its citizens. It also made it almost impossible for Kakashi and Sakura to pick up any scent.

 

The Sairyu Inn was a relatively big two-story building. It looked more like an izakaya that had suddenly decided to build a second floor and rent out rooms for the night than a proper inn, but they weren’t complaining. The innkeeper/bartender was a serious looking old man that didn’t bat an eye when they asked for just one room with two beds. 

 

Their room was small with a rickety table with only two chairs on one side and the beds that could barely be called double on the other, separated by a short bedside table with a rusty looking window behind them. Still, Sakura was happy that it came with a private bathroom and they wouldn’t have to go to the local bathhouse. It wasn’t like they intended on staying there long, either way. 

 

They were simply there to root out any whispers about the thieves’ camp and see if they could get recruited. If there was nothing, they would move on to a village that was further north of the camp and wait there. Sakura just hoped their intel was good and the rogues were actually looking to recruit more people.

 

Before Asuma and Sakura could do anything, Kakashi was pushing forward towards the bathroom and announcing, “I call first shower,” before closing the door on their faces. 

 

“No chivalry with that one,” Sakura scoffed before rolling her eyes and moving to discard her bag on the floor next to one of the beds.

 

“Shouldn’t you jump in there with him, Akari-chan?” Asuma asked and Sakura turned to see him wiggle his eyebrows at her. He seemed to have grown used to seeing Kato and Akari as a couple and looked much more relaxed than earlier in the day.

 

Sakura giggled. Asuma looked so funny then, with his drenched clothes and wiggling brows, his face devoid of a beard and hair buzzed short. With him teasing her like that, it was easy to see how Genma and him had been best friends. She could easily imagine a much younger version of the man in front of her, stealing cigarettes and tempting a twelve-year-old Genma with one.

 

“Not with you in here, idiot!” Sakura put her hands on her hips but there was still an amused grin on her face.

 

“Alright, alright!” Asuma raised his hands in surrender and pointed towards the door. “I’ll see if I can find us some lunch downstairs. Take your time.”

 

Sakura had to give it to him. It was a very smooth way of getting downstairs to interact with the customers they’d seen on the bar and the innkeeper himself. With a small chuckle, Sakura riffled through her backpack until she found the book she was looking for and then sat down on one of the wooden chairs to read.

 

To anyone else, the book looked to be about medium level iryo-ninjutsu but it was much more than that. Sakura had always been an avid reader and in the many nights she had found herself awake because of nightmares, she had taken to reading. At first she had used books on chakra to practice and when those became trivial, iryo-ninjutsu books. Soon she had read everything there was to read about that subject and moved on to genjutsu. 

 

Tsunade, after having given her her jounin gift, had offhandedly mentioned that she might be interested in the books and scrolls they had on fuinjutsu. It had been the perfect pet project for Sakura. It wasn’t something she would consider herself to be an expert on, but she had learned quite a lot and it was a nice way of distracting herself from her thoughts whenever she had down time.

 

She had learned how to create a seal to disguise whatever it was she was reading. The only people who could read what was really in the book was someone who had their chakra infused in the seal, to the rest of the world, it looked like an exact copy of First Aid: Intermediate.

 

Sakura had just finished the chapter she was reading of Fuinjutsu in Uzushiogakure when Kakashi came out of the bathroom.

 

“You took forever,” Sakura complained in an almost whine. She moved to the bed to get her things and pouted when Kakashi chuckled and moved to lie back on the bed, a familiar book on his hands. “Really?” Sakura raised an eyebrow at him.

 

When he only shrugged at her and lifted Icha Icha Paradise higher to cover his face, Sakura shook her head and moved to the bathroom. She wondered how he would make the book fit his cover but had not a shadow of doubt that he would twist it and manage to do just that.

 

Sakura relished the feeling of hot water on her chilled skin while washing her makeup away. She wished she had splurged on water resistant mascara, annoyed that some had run and smudged and neither of the men in her company had seen fit to inform her. The rain raged on outside.

 

A while later, Kakashi and Sakura were eating the food Asuma had brought back on the rickety table while the man took his shower. It was a simple meal of oden but it was hot and it warmed her significantly. Their window didn’t seem to close completely and while the awning outside it made sure no water got inside, it was still pretty drafty. Sakura wished she had packed warmer clothes now that she couldn’t rely on circling her chakra faster to keep her warm.

 

There wasn’t much they could do with the rain still going strong outside, so Sakura and Kakashi settled on their bed while Asuma pulled up one of the chairs towards them and they decided it was okay to play some cards. 

 

Asuma carefully told them what he had managed to get out of the customers downstairs which admittedly wasn’t much. The innkeeper, however, had already been informed that they were looking for work and that Sakura was a medic, so hopefully it wouldn’t take long for someone to catch that particular bait.

 

They played until it was dark then decided to have dinner downstairs and call it a day. The rain had stopped but all the shops had already closed so there was little to no point in going out that night. Dinner was good, if a little too greasy, and when Asuma excused himself to smoke outside, Sakura followed him while Kakashi went to pay the tab.

 

Asuma and Sakura shot him amused looks when he announced he would head to the counter to pay but one curt, “Shut up,” from him had been enough for them to not say anything about it.

 

They stood just outside the inn and Asuma lit one cigarette for himself before offering Sakura one from the pack. She accepted it, ignoring the amused tilt of his eyebrow, and leaned forward so he could light it for her. 

 

“It finally stopped raining,” Sakura said quietly with her next exhale, her eyes lazily scanning the streets in a pretence of looking around.

 

“Yeah,” Asuma grunted. 

 

She knew the main reason Asuma had gone outside was to smoke but it would be good to at least try and check in with Chika and Pakkun. It wasn’t ideal that they didn’t have a good enough reason to walk around the village but Sakura only needed to see Chika in the distance to be able to communicate with her through their bond.

 

She was down to the middle of her cigarette when she finally saw a spot of white in the distance, moving happily through the alleyway ahead of them.

 

Chika? Sakura asked.

 

Sakura-hime! This rain was so annoying, I took so long to find you! Chika’s child-like voice sounded inside her head and Sakura gave Asuma an almost imperceptible nod.

 

Do you have anything to report? Sakura asked, straight to the point because her cigarette was almost over and she didn’t want to light another one to find a reason to stay outside. We’re staying in a room here.

 

I can smell it now, I’ll come find you if I find anything, Chika answered. Pakkun-san said that he couldn’t find any traces of the smell they had picked up yesterday while investigating the camp. 

 

Because of the rain? Sakura asked, already getting annoyed that the stupid weather would make them stay longer than necessary.

 

No, we got here before it began, Sakura-hime! For now there’s no sign of them but we’ll keep looking! I won’t let you down!

 

Good job, Chika, Sakura thought with a small smile on her face, you can rest now. Be safe, okay?

 

Don’t worry about me, Sakura-hime! Pakkun and I will find somewhere to sleep.

 

“Well, I’m heading in.” Sakura turned to snub out her cigarette against a bin near them before throwing it out and turning back to Asuma. “Are you staying here, Asao-kun?”

 

“Yeah, you head up ahead,” Asuma spoke through the cigarette still in his mouth, a roguish grin on his lips. “I’ll have a few more drinks. Give the two of you some time alone.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes in exasperation but it was only for show. While they had been out there, a few patrons had left and some had gone inside and it would make sense for him to stay down there to talk to them or at least hear their conversation.

 

Sakura pressed a peck to his cheek in goodnight and went back to their room. Kakashi was sprawled on their bed reading his book, one hand holding it in front of him and the other folded between his head and pillow. He had taken out his pouches and boots but was still in the same clothes he had changed into after his shower, eerily similar to what he’d been wearing before, only he had switched his vest for a dark green long sleeved shirt. The clothes they’d been wearing were drying on top of the chairs and table.

 

“Yo,” Kakashi greeted her when she came in, eye lazily roving over her features to determine what she had found out outside.

 

“Hey,” Sakura said with a warm grin and moved towards her bag. “I saw the cutest dog outside. Poor thing looked so disgruntled by the rain.” Sakura let him know she had made contact with Chika and that the rain had been a problem. She picked up her bag and dropped a kiss on his forehead in greeting. The curtains were still open and they couldn’t afford dropping the act.

 

“We can always go back outside and get it to come stay with us,” Kakashi offered and hid behind his book when Sakura shot him a deadpan look. Not that she didn’t want the poor things to be with them where it was at least dry, but it would kind of defeat the purpose of having them in the village.

 

“I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that.” Sakura closed herself in the bathroom to complete her nightly routine.

 

She hadn’t exactly brought pyjamas but she could do some things to make herself more comfortable for sleep, specially because this wasn’t a mission that would require her to run in the middle of the night. She took off her bra, grabbed a black sweater from her pack that was slightly thicker than her hoodie and let her hair down. After finishing up, she came back outside only to find Kakashi had scooted over to one side of the bed to make room for her.

 

The outside, where the bed didn’t connect with the wall. 

 

Sakura blinked at him for a second before moving to place her bag on the floor and grab her book again. She fought the urge to show him how displeased she was and climbed through the foot of the bed so she didn’t need to climb over him.

 

It was okay. So what that she would feel claustrophobic being squished between the wall and him. He had fourteen years of trauma on her. She could handle sleeping like that if he preferred the outside. 

 

Sakura awkwardly settled on her back, one shoulder pressed against the cold wall and the other jostling Kakashi’s and tried to open her book to read. It was uncomfortable. She sighed.

 

“C’mere.” He gestured with his chin for her to come closer and it took her a while to understand what he wanted.

 

Hesitantly, Sakura moved to rest her head on the crook between the shoulder he had lifted and his chest. When he only moved Icha Icha to the side, Sakura brought her own book up and opened the page she had left off. It was small enough that she could rest it on his torso and after a while, she could focus enough on the words on the page to actually read.

 

His heartbeat was a steady, strong beat on her ear and it almost felt like he had used a calming genjutsu on her. Some of the cold she had felt all day was still nipping at her feet but Kakashi’s warmth and steadiness made her relax.

 

“First Aid?” He asked quietly after she’d read a chapter. His voice had taken her out of her zone but it was so calm and low that it didn’t startle her. 

 

Sakura huffed a quiet laugh.

 

“Not exactly,” she said, just as quiet. Then, while extending her senses to check for chakra signatures nearby, she took the hand holding Icha Icha into her own, making him drop it open beside her head. There was only Asuma’s signature downstairs and another one besides him that wasn’t even strong enough to be a genin so she figured they were safe enough.

 

Sakura directed a small zap of chakra into his hand, willing him to do the same when she placed it over her book. When he fed the seal some of his chakra, she brought it up for him to read again. Kakashi hummed quietly and used his newly freed hand to trace some writings on the margins of the book.

 

“This is my sensei’s handwriting,” he said.

 

“Really?” Sakura asked. She aborted a movement to turn her head to look at him in surprise at the last minute, knowing that their faces would be extremely close in this position.

 

Kakashi only hummed again and nodded his head. Sakura felt his chin moving up and down against the top of her head, some of her auburn hair catching on the beginnings of a beard. Somehow, in all her recent realisations about Kakashi, she had never expected him to have something as mundanely male as a five o’clock shadow. 

 

The sudden knowledge of it sent her heart beating faster and Sakura swallowed drily. It was a normal reaction, of course. Despite what she had with Neji not being strictly exclusive, in the last six months or so they had come to an unspoken agreement that they would only be with the other if only because they simply did not have the time to look for other partners when being with each other was so much easier.

 

Still, he had been the last man she had been this close to and it felt somewhat weird that these types of reactions were happening without him being present. Weirder still that behind the new hair and freshly shown face it was Kakashi. 

 

“Can I read with you?” He asked and Sakura mentaly chastised herself for tensing up. They would be close like this all throughout this mission and she had never had a problem with it before in some of the similar ones she had taken. This would not be the first mission that she would completely fail only because it was weird. It would get easier. 

 

 Sakura cleared her throat.

 

“Of course.”

 

And that’s how Asuma found them, laying in bed together, reading the same book with Icha Icha pushed away to the bedside table. 

 

He entered the room with a polite knock before closing and locking the door behind him.

 

“Aren’t you too cute,” he said as he quickly moved towards the window to close the curtains. As soon as he did, he signed something that made both Kakashi and Sakura sit upright in bed.

 

Secrecy needed. 

 

Sakura immediately jumped from the bed, careful not to make any sounds as she moved to her backpack. Asuma and Kakashi carried a casual conversation that she intermittently participated in as she rummaged through the contents until she found what she was looking for.

 

In the bottom of her medic kit, a small box that contained a few different seals. She took one and slapped it to the nearest surface before activating it.

 

“We’re safe, the only thing someone can hear from outside is some muffled sounds,” she said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed beside Kakashi as Asuma took a seat on his own bed.

 

“What happened?” Kakashi asked, carefully placing her book next to his on the bedside table.

 

“I talked to a guy downstairs, he looked like he had some training as a ninja but not anything significant.” The lower than genin-level chakra signature she had felt before. “He says his brother works as an independent contractor around this area and that he’s hiring people to work for him. Ninja only and he implied that a weak stomach would not be appreciated.”

 

“That’s great! We found our way in!” Sakura smiled at him but it fell when she noticed Asuma’s annoyed grimace.

 

“Technically, yes. But the guy won’t hire us without looking at us and he only comes around town on fridays to stock up on whatever his camp needs.”

 

Ah, well. Okay. Four more days in this dank room it was.

 

“It can’t be helped,” Kakashi sighed and raked a hand through the hair falling over his eye. 

 

“It’s probably good that we have those few extra days to settle into our role, anyway,” Sakura said, trying to see the bright side even though a shiver ran up her spine from the cold. 

 

“You’re right.” Asuma nodded. “This seal is pretty useful, can we use it again?”

 

“We can’t reuse it and it’s best that we keep this from happening unless absolutely necessary,” Sakura said. “But I have five more of those for emergencies and can draw up some more if needed.”

 

“Good.” Kakashi nodded his head approvingly. “Let’s settle for the night. Since we already found our way in it makes no sense to keep looking but we should keep a schedule tomorrow that lets us have a look around all the same. Did you get a chance to tell this guy that Sakura is a medic?”

 

“Yes,” Asuma replied, his fingers twitching like he was already desperate for a cigarette. “It’s what really sold him. He looked thrilled by the prospect, actually. I think he cares a lot for his brother and doesn’t entirely condone his hobbies. ”

 

“Hm, let’s keep that in mind,” Sakura hummed. “It might be useful leverage in the future.”

 

It wasn’t a particularly cold and calculating outtake on her part but Asuma and Kakashi still shot her somewhat surprised looks as she moved to deactivate the seal. At the last minute, she turned to Asuma.

 

“Did you hear anything about the Akatsuki?” Sakura asked, her voice serious.

 

“No…” he trailed off, unease clear in his tone. 

 

“Since we already found the syndicate, it wouldn’t hurt to keep our ears to the ground to see if we learn more about this duo.” Sakura turned to raise her eyebrows at Kakashi, silently asking him what he thought.

 

“We have to be careful, it can’t get back to them that we have been asking questions.” Kakashi stared absentmindedly at the bedspread and scratched his jaw in thought. “No direct questions, just pay attention and make directed comments if they seem innocent enough.”

 

“Agreed,” Asuma nodded and then got up to head for the bathroom. Sakura destroyed the seal and put its remains back into her medic pouch.

 

Kakashi got up, stretched and pulled the covers back so Sakura could slide in bed first. With a quiet sigh, Sakura climbed beneath the covers and settled as close to the wall as she possibly could. The mattress moved and creaked as Kakashi climbed in after her. 

 

Asuma came out of the bathroom then and turned off the lights and quiet  ‘goodnights’ were exchanged. 

 

For some reason, Sakura couldn’t fall asleep. She was fairly tired, having only slept a handful of hours the night before, but she had a lot of pent up energy coursing through her veins, unable to find a release. The buildup for this mission had been tense and had kept her on high alert, ready for a fight, only for them to get to this tiny village and have nothing to do. Which would be the case for the next four days as well.

 

She was also cold, despite the covers and sweater, and it would be almost impossible for her to fall asleep with her teeth slightly chattering and her chest stuttering with the cold. Sakura released an annoyed breath and tried to focus on slowing down her heart rate.

 

“How are you this cold?” Kakashi murmured from his side of the bed. He was facing away from her and she could only feel his back on her shoulder. Asuma laughed.

 

“She’s tiny, Hatanaka,” Asuma teased and Sakura narrowed her eyes at the ceiling.

 

“Shut up, it’s drafty ,” Sakura complained, making Kakashi chuckle.

 

He turned around then and Sakura held her breath, waiting for him to make his move. Slowly but not hesitantly, he reached for her arm and pulled her to him, her back to his front so she was facing the wall. 

 

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, if she was being honest. She would never have consciously decided to be trapped between a wall and somebody else and Sakura had never been a particularly cuddly person. Still, Kakashi felt like a furnace beneath the covers and his warmth and deep steady breaths quickly made her relax into his hold.

 

She fought hard not to sigh, quietly expelling a slightly harsher breath instead, then moved her legs to get as warm as possible. 

 

“Do you have icicles for feet?” Kakashi hissed in her ear, making Asuma snicker sleepily from the other bed. 

 

Sakura smiled tiredly, the few hours of sleep finally catching up to her.

 

“Stop squirming and be a good fucking husband,” she ordered through a yawn. She fell asleep with Kakashi’s grumbling in her ear and Asuma’s snores on the other side of the room.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura woke up before the others. The rain had picked up again and the sound of it lightly hitting the awning just before dawn had been enough to rouse her from sleep. During missions, Sakura had conditioned herself to never be that far out of reach from consciousness, always ready to go at the slightest of sounds.

 

It was a defence mechanism she put in place to survive in the field but also to keep her from dreaming. Specifically to keep her from having nightmares. She had woken up one too many times with kunai in her hands, waiting for a fight.

 

Things had gotten better and at the same time worse as the years had gone by. While real life had given more fodder for her nightmares to be especially gruesome and terrifying, she had enough experience in dealing with them now that her reaction time had lessened. She would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes when she slept over at Neji’s with her hand around his neck but she could recognise what was happening before her fingers even tightened around his throat. Most of the time, he slept through it.

 

That morning Sakura woke up from a dreamless sleep facing the wall. She could identify Kakashi’s quiet breaths and Asumas’ light snores from behind her and it was instantly clear that Kakashi’s arm was beneath her head. 

 

One of her feet was jammed beneath his calf while her other leg was pulled up towards her chest and her nose was just a few centimetres away from the wall. Seeing the peeling white paint so close to her made something in her stomach tighten, her heartbeat immediately doubling in speed.

 

The sudden rush of blood through her body made her head swim for a few seconds and it took a beat longer for Sakura to realise her breathing was fast. Too fast.

 

Sakura swallowed hard and tried to focus her attention on her chakra, trying to use it to slow down her heartbeat. She slowly began turning to look at the ceiling, profoundly glad Kakashi had been facing up as well instead of hugging her from behind like they had gone to sleep. It allowed her a little room to breathe.

 

She took a few deep breaths, her head clearing a little in the process, but her heartbeat was still way faster than she wanted it to be. Forcing herself not to over analyse the action, Sakura turned towards Kakashi, her head easily falling on his chest.

 

His heartbeat was strong and steady in her ear and it was easy to let herself focus on only that sound. In her mind’s eye, she could see the muscle clenching and pumping life through his body, the swirls of chakra running through his pathways lazily. Sakura unconsciously clenched her hand around his shirt where it was resting right above his heart.

 

Of course it didn’t take much more than that for Kakashi to wake up. For a second, Sakura tried to ignore him, just feeling relieved that she had avoided a full out panic attack on a mission . But then he turned his head slightly towards her, his chin just brushing the top of her head like the night before.

 

“You okay?” He asked, his voice deep and scratchy from sleep. Sakura could hear it rumbling in his chest. He had certainly noticed her increased heartbeat and accelerated breathing, the slight sheen of cold sweat on the back of her neck and the anxious way her chakra was settling down from. Kakashi brought the arm she had been sleeping on to her shoulder so he could squeeze her upper arm.

 

It was such an intimate moment. The significance of what was happening making her breath stutter out of her chest. Sakura nodded quickly and pushed herself up and away from him.

 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, halfway out of the bed. “The shops will be opening soon, we should get a move on.”

 

And with that she quickly made her way across the room towards the bathroom where she promptly locked the door. Feeling stupid and insecure, Sakura stripped and got inside the small shower. 

 

She washed herself quickly, determined to move past her slight overreaction. She didn’t particularly like the fact that Kakashi had been the one to calm her down—even if inadvertently—and it was plain dumb to feel that way. Kakashi was a part of her pack, her teammate not only in this mission but from her first team ever. It was okay for him to offer her comfort like that and it didn’t make Sakura suddenly retrocede into that foolish young girl who had been woefully inconsolable by her sensei’s heavy hand on her shoulder while the world as she knew it started to crumble around her.

 

Sakura tsked in annoyance. She’d forgotten to bring her bag inside the bathroom with her. She brushed her long hair, quickly using her towel to dry it enough so it wouldn’t drip everywhere, then wrapped it around herself. 

 

Sakura sent herself a glare in the misted mirror, Inner telling her to get a fucking grip, then stepped outside.

 

“Sorry, boys, I need a few minutes for my makeup, still.” Sakura moved towards her bag while Asuma sent her a thumbs up from beneath the mountain of covers around him and Kakashi grumbled into his pillow. 

 

Waking up at dawn with a light rain pattering against their roof really wasn’t an activity inspiring reality, she could agree with them, especially when this part of their mission was practically done with. If she hadn’t been suddenly overcome with anxiety, she would surely be the one having to be wrestled out of bed.

 

Sakura got dressed in her clothes that had been drying from the day before and put on her makeup, then waited for her hair to dry while the others got ready. They decided to have breakfast on a stand on the other side of the square and lazily made their way there.

 

The rain had thankfully stopped and didn’t pick up throughout the days that they stayed there, only a few minutes of it during the night. 

 

Sakura kept her eyes peeled and her ears to the ground, making sure to do activities without the boys to see if someone slipped up. It had been in the women’s bathhouse, of all places, that she heard a few women gushing about a tall man with a long cloak opened in the front and the ‘delicious shinobi muscles’ showing. 

 

The women hadn’t been much help, more focused on the rogue’s physique than anything else but they had confirmed what everybody had been dreading to hear. Two men, black cloaks with red clouds, dangerous looking. According to the women they had passed through town the week before and had not been seen since but when carefully questioned, they couldn’t even tell which of the exits they had taken.

 

Still, Sakura relayed her information to her team and to Chika so she could pass if forward to Team Ro and the rest of the pack and on that Friday, they met with the leader of the thieves.

 

Yamamoto Yuuto was a tall man in his mid thirties that clearly had some experience as a shinobi but mostly carried himself as a civilian. He wore kunai pouches that looked full but his clothes were distinctively civvies. He had lean muscles but didn’t check for exits on his way inside their izakaya, nor did he sit facing any of the windows or doors. 

 

Sakura’s guess by the amount of chakra he seemed to have was that he was a genin when he deserted whatever village he was from. He didn’t seem particularly threatening but that didn’t deter Sakura from being on high alert near him. 

 

He had some crow’s feet and expression lines, but his head was fully dark and his dark eyes were keen and charming. Yuuto was the type of guy to flirt and mean nothing by it and he had clearly gotten used to getting what he wanted. 

 

The way his eyes had shinned when Sakura talked about her experience as a medic was enough confirmation that she had been right in choosing that particular trait for Akari. 

 

Overall, the four days they spent in Sairyu were enough that Sakura, Asuma and Kakashi had grown closer and more comfortable with each other. Yuuto easily bought their stories and soon enough they were heading towards the northern entrance of the village, bags in hand. 

 

The thieves had set camp in a large clearing a few minutes off the road and it was with no amount of relief that Sakura noticed they didn’t have intricate genjutsu and traps surrounding them. That meant that despite their numbers, they didn’t have a genjutsu specialist among them and possibly no one that was an Akatsuki-level ninja. 

 

The tents were set in a circular formation around a firepit surrounded by logs for sitting. There was a larger tent than the others that Yuuto pointed as his own and a wooden structure that housed three showers and two toilets. 

 

Yuuto explained that the place was slowly being built back up and that soon they’d have tables and more space for showering and shitting. His words.

 

During their brief tour of the place, Sakura catalogued everything about their operation. They had two sentinels on the trees surrounding them and two working patrol around the perimeter of the camp. Fifteen thieves in total, three of them women and only eleven tents. 

 

She had spotted three ninja that looked to be jounin-level—two guys, one woman—and two others could pass as chunin while the rest were genin at best. 

 

It wouldn’t exactly be easy to subdue every single one of them, but with the element of surprise they could do a lot. Still, they needed to blend in well with them until they had more data on their operation and on the Akatsuki duo they seemed to have connections with.  

 

“You’re in luck,” Yuuto said as they made their way to his huge tent where he kept a few chests at the entrance. “Kenji and Yukio finally decided to man the fuck up and share a tent together, if you know what I mean, so we have exactly two extra tents. Here you go, grab these and a couple of lanterns. Towels are in the bathroom, we’ll set you up with a guard shift and a cooking and cleaning shift, everyone does it.”

 

Yuuto guided them across the fire to a place where they could set their tents and said that when they were done they should join them for dinner so he could introduce them to everyone and talk about their ‘missions’. 

 

The people were… surprisingly okay. Kenji and Yukio were the male jounin she had sensed earlier and while Kenji wasn’t much for talk, Yukio was friendly and quickly took a liking to Sakura. The others were equally as distant, wary of newcomers but no one had been openly antagonistic in the first two nights they stayed in the camp. 

 

Sakura had a bit of a struggle with getting used to sharing such a small space with Kakashi at first and she could notice that it was the same for him. The tent was tall enough that Sakura could easily stand up and Kakashi only had to stoop a little but there was only a tiny space for their joint sleeping bags. Their backpacks stood on either side of the sleeping bags, cramped so they could easily get in and out of the tent.

 

While in Sairyu Kakashi and Sakura had come to an easy routine of casual touches that were innocent enough not to make either of them uncomfortable, things had seemed to change since they arrived at the camp. They had spent six nights sharing a sleeping space and quite often going to sleep and waking up tangled in each other.

 

That was fine by Sakura, she had slept like that with plenty of men before without being uncomfortable or tempted in any way. It was just that while in Sairyu, they often had a bit of space after a night spent like that. They would go to different places, sometimes sit on opposite sides of the table and most importantly, change clothes separately.

 

Now in the camp, they were constantly bumping against each other in the tent, trying to divest themselves of outer layers and weapons or even changing shirts and pants in the morning. Sakura was somewhat comfortable with Kakashi and she knew that he had adopted the same attitude he had with Team Ro with her, but...

 

She began to wonder if she was being a bit too comfortable with him.

 

Sakura tried to create a bit of distance wherever she could, asking for the cleaning and cooking shifts whenever she knew he would be on guard shift, coming into their tent after he had already gone in. It helped a bit, but she couldn’t do it too much or the other people around camp would start to get suspicious.

 

It didn’t help that, while she knew this would be a longer mission, they had made absolutely no advances as they neared the end of their third day there. The people around camp were pretty closed off into their own little groups and they were pretty much seen as outsiders. 

 

No specific talk of missions went on around them, not anything that would give them any clues to their abilities and connections inside the Land of Fire, anyway. Whenever they were drawn into conversations, they were mostly aimed at them or something that had happened in the camp. Yukio was perhaps the only one who was completely open with Sakura.

 

And maybe that’s why when she was coming out of the showers on their third night there and she heard his voice outside, she stopped to listen. 

 

“I don’t know if it’s any of our business, Aya…” he said, sounding uncertain.

 

Aya was the third jounin in the camp and she was dating Mitsuo, a burly man in his late twenties that could pass as a chunin. Sakura stayed behind the opened door as the two talked and smoked on the log used as a bench outside.

 

“A lil’ harmless gossip never killed anyone, Yuki-kun,'' Aya teased. “I’m just sayin’, don’t ya think it’s… weird?”

 

Yukio sighed. 

 

“They could just be a private couple,” he said. “Not everyone has to be all over each other all the time.”

 

“If they were civilians, sure. But they’re ninja .” Aya gave a little laugh. “And that man is a stud , I’d be all over him all day long if I were her.”

 

“Aya-chan!” Yukio chastised but there was laughter in his voice. Aya continued as if she hadn’t heard him.

 

“And the same goes for the girl! Holy shit, she is hot. That man must be a saint to be able to keep his hands to himself.”

 

“We’ll be late for our shift,” Yukio said and chuckled a bit, sounding like he was getting up, before adding, “And don’t you let Mitsuo hear you! He’s hot too, you know. You gotta appreciate what you have.”

 

Their voices were starting to sound further and further away.

 

“I know! Don’t get me wrong, I love my stupid beefcake but there is a certain charm to a man that looks like he would gladly spank—”

 

They were too far away to be heard then and Sakura released an irritated breath before continuing on her way to her tent.

 

Well, fuck .

 

She unceremoniously opened the flap of the tent and was greeted with a seminaked Kakashi, on his way to changing shirts.

 

Fuck.

 

Sakura stepped further inside instead of giving him space and hurriedly put her backpack down so she could reach for a privacy seal. As soon as Kakashi realised what she was doing, he quickly dimmed the light of their lantern so their shadows wouldn’t cast as much on the walls of the tent.

 

Sakura dropped on top of their sleeping bags with a huff and started taking off her boots, a frustrated frown on her face.

 

“We’re gonna have to step up our game,” she said when he sat down next to her, thankfully with his new shirt on now, and began the same process as her.

 

“What do you mean?” Kakashi asked, a confused crease between his eyebrows.

 

Sakura sighed and explained the conversation she had overheard while they settled on their respective sides. She ran her hands through her slightly damp hair while he scratched the back of his neck.

 

“Shit,” he said with a grimace. “I heard some of the others talking about it too. One of the guys on guard shift earlier today asked me about it, even.”

 

“What did you say?” Sakura asked, crossing her legs beneath her and turning to look at him.

 

“I said we had a fight.” Kakashi shrugged his grimace still in place on his uncovered face. “We need to blend in better. Especially now that we finally got an opportunity to get closer to them.”

 

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked. “What happened?”

 

“Yuuto asked me to join the team that’s gonna rob a caravan tomorrow,” Kakashi replied. “I might have an opportunity to access their operation better, see what the team has in terms of abilities.”

 

Sakura sighed in relief. At least they had made some headway. They only needed to make their cover more believable now. They couldn’t screw this up just because they were afraid of crossing some imaginary line in the sand. 

 

Sakura had never backed down from doing whatever was necessary during missions. She had slaughtered, stolen, kidnapped and tortured in the name of her village. She could handle being closer to a man she trusted in order to complete the mission.

 

“We’ll have to do whatever it takes, Kakashi.” Sakura looked at him then, briefly noticing how familiar his face and the lines of his body had become to her in the past week. She hoped he could see in her eyes how seriously she was taking this. “For the sake of the mission.”

 

Kakashi looked at her then and she saw reflected in his eye the same determination that made her jaw set. Kakashi was just like her, in the end, self-sacrificing and diligent during missions, completing them as thoroughly and efficiently as possible. He wouldn’t back down.

“What do you have in mind?”

Notes:

SO. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

God, I'm getting soooo excited to FINALLY. FINALLY be getting closer to this part of the fic. This arc is so much fun, fuck. Sorry not sorry I just HAD to put all of those wonderful, wonderful cliches that I love (the fake marriage, the oops they have to share a bed and consequently the oops they have to share a tent). Also, Asuma, as promised :) I was honestly pretty nervous about writing him bc he's so underexplored in canon (and really became a plot device at the end but we'll talk more about that later) and I just don't know if I actually did him justice? Also, juggling so many characters is so fkn hard, omg.

I have a bit of bad news? For the past three months I have been delivering these long-ish chapters every week for you guys and I'm super happy and proud of myself that I managed to stick with that so far, honestly. It's just that, fuck, I need a break. Burnout is so close I can fkn taste it, y'all, ngl. So far I managed to come up with chapters that I'm satisfied with but it's getting harder and harder to be completely happy with them and I hate to think that I'd let the quality of this fic drop just for the sake of updating every week. Now, I'm STOKED that having Fire Fridays made you guys sooo much more participative and excited for the next chapters so I'm definitely NOT gonna stop with that. I'm just gonna take a quick break so I can write ahead without having to worry about deadlines. Next Fire Friday will be the last for a short while (I still haven't decided on a date to come back but I'll let you guys know next chapter the exact day to expect a new chapter! It shouldn't be longer than a month) and the next chapter will be a bit shorter than usual but I wanted to stop in a place that you guys wouldn't be too mad about having to wait about a month for the next part lol.

I hope you guys can understand that while this fic means the world to me, I need to prioritize my mental health for a bit in order to keep going. I'm exhausted, life is exhausting. You have no idea how much I cherish each and everyone of you and how much you make my life better. Don't worry about me abandoning this and never coming back, okay? That is NOT going to happen. A, bless her heart, would kick my ass and she can get to my house in about two minutes so I wouldn't risk it.

Love you, see you next week :)

Chapter 34: Keeping Up the Ruse

Notes:

Welcome to the last Fire Friday of 2020! As usual, this is coming a bit later in the day than I actually wanted to upload but, oh well. I guess my New Years resolution can be trying to upload on a set time on Fridays, I'm aiming for 3pm GMT :)

Oh, yeah! Just a heads up, I tried putting the talk between Sakura and her pack between "" bc that shit was making *me* confused, so yeah.

Enjoy!

Sakura took longer to get up the following morning, letting Kakashi go ahead and start the first phase of their hastily thrown together plan. He would have a ‘private’ conversation with Asuma during breakfast about their supposed fight, making sure at least some people heard of it. Her absence during the meal would surely spurn some questions and Kakashi would brush them off like it was nothing while making it abundantly clear that something had happened.

 

She briefly woke up when Kakashi first got up but resolutely turned her back towards him and covered her head with the covers to try and block out some of the sunlight as she fell back asleep. It was a shallow nap, nothing that she couldn’t be up from within seconds, but it significantly improved her mood. 

 

Which was a shame because part of the plan revolved around the fact that Sakura had to pretend to be miserable.

 

Of course, she hadn’t acted miserable for the past three days so she had to be more subtle than that. Sakura got up and went about putting herself together for the day ahead while stimulating her tear ducts with small amounts of chakra so she could force herself to cry. Once she spent a sufficient amount of time doing so, she dried her tears, put on a big fake smile and left the tent towards the outskirts of the camp where she would take a few hours of watch.

 

After receiving pitying looks from her partner for the day which she promptly ignored and kept a quiet but forcibly happy appearance, Sakura headed towards the campfire to take her shift of working with the cooks. She had been firmly delegated to chopping the vegetables whenever she took a shift on the cooking pit but she didn’t mind the slight against her cooking skills, it would serve as an advantage that day.

 

A few of the members were already there, having finished their tasks around camp and deciding to wait for the first serve of the food. Right on time, Aya sat down on one of the logs with Yukio. 

 

Sakura kept quiet as she worked, waiting patiently for Kakashi’s chakra signature to appear closer. When he was just a few meters away, she let the knife slip and make a shallow cut on her finger.

 

“Ow, ow, ow,” Sakura cried, making Yukio get up and put a hand on her shoulder in worry. 

 

“Akari-chan! Are you okay?” He asked and Sakura’s good mood just got better. Everything was falling perfectly into place. She caught Kakashi moving in the corner of her eye at the same time Yukio did. 

 

“Damn it,” Sakura said quietly, tears brimming on her eyes but not yet falling as she moved an excessively chakra heavy hand to her cut. It felt wrong to use so much chakra on a simple cut but Akari didn’t have the proficiency on iryo-ninjutsu Sakura had and she needed the telltale green glow to appear all around her hand and not just on her palm.

 

“Akari-chan…” Yukio murmured, his face going from worried to angry as he watched Kakashi approach. Clearly Yukio had already heard about their fight during breakfast and had chosen sides. Sakura wanted to laugh but, instead, she made herself choke on a sob. 

 

“I’m fine, Yukio-san, I just need…” Sakura trailed off, her tears spilling down her cheeks as she let her head drop and quickly walked off.

 

She made her way past the campfire towards the cleared small section next to it where the thieves used to spar. Once she was far away enough that they could have a private conversation but still within eyesight, Kakashi stopped her with a hand on her arm. He held her in place long enough so he could step past her and settle in front of her. 

 

Sakura counted the steps she took in her mind and fought a smirk. They were far away enough that the low ranking thieves wouldn’t be able to hear them but a trained shinobi would hear most of the conversation. Aya and Yukio, the only two jounin present, were perfectly placed to witness the fight.

 

“Akari…” Kakashi started, the gruff, serious voice he had adopted as Kato softening into something warmer, regretful sounding. 

 

“No, it’s okay,” Sakura replied, taking her arm from his hold and cleaning her blood covered finger on her pants. “I’m okay, really.”

 

“No, you’re not.” Kakashi stepped forward and Sakura debated taking a step backwards. Was Akari hurt enough that she would reject his touch? Kakashi took her face between his impossibly warm hands and Sakura figured Akari couldn’t possibly want to put space between herself and that source of warmth. “I don’t know how else to make things better. It’s either this or I go back to working jobs as an assassin. Maybe it’s safer for you that way.”

 

“No, Kato, don’t.” Sakura put her hands over his leather covered wrists, squeezing it lightly even though the others wouldn’t be able to see it. She felt so satisfied that everything was working out okay, she wanted to laugh. “I rather be here with you than safe inside some musty inn while you and Asao risk your lives. Just… please stop pushing me away, I can’t do this without you.”

 

The way her voice took a small pitiful undertone annoyed Sakura. She sounded too much like the girl she had been, fawning over Sasuke and begging him to let her leave the village with him. She knew that annoyance was unfounded, however. She was sounding like that because she was exactly the opposite of that little girl. She was lying and infiltrating this camp for the sake of her village, her loyalty never to be questioned again.

 

Kakashi stepped closer. 

 

She had to tilt her head up to see him then and his hands shifted with the movement, his thumbs brushing away her tears before sliding lower to settle on her jaw. 

 

“You’re not alone.” Kakashi stepped even closer and Sakura’s heartbeat sped up. Was he going… Was he going to kiss her? His thumb caressed her jaw and Sakura felt a shiver roll down her spine. Kakashi finished in a quiet voice, “I’m with you.”

 

And, yeah, okay.

 

Apparently, Kakashi was going to kiss her. His nose brushed hers—giving her time to reject it, she realised—just before his mouth fell on hers, closed but then tilting forward and down so it could have looked like he was deepening the kiss to their observers. And there were plenty of them, Sakura could feel their eyes burning holes on her back as more people arrived for lunch. 

 

Sakura let her hands fall from his wrists to his waist, pulling him slightly closer as their mouths moved together. It was a chaste kiss, really, nothing that would particularly send her heartbeat into a gallop or make her belly flutter but the warmth of him pressed to her front on that particularly cold morning sent another shiver down her spine, this one much more noticeable.

 

Sakura had an almost out of body experience, Inner conspicuously quiet on the back of her mind as she wondered just how the fuck did she get there. And most importantly, why wasn’t she freaking out more over the fact that she had Kakashi’s lips on hers. Distantly, she also wondered when his scent had become so familiar to her.

 

Her rational and analytical mind took over when Kakashi broke the kiss. Maybe she wasn’t freaking out because this man holding her didn’t feel like Kakashi- sensei. It felt like Hound, a fellow Team Ro member on an infiltration mission with her, someone she trusted and respected and that treated her as an equal. Still, she felt like Yugao—and the rest of them, really—had slightly miscalculated on how easy and appropriate their cover stories would be.

 

Sakura pressed her face to Kakashi’s neck, trying to hide her smile there. She didn’t think she could handle looking at his ridiculously pretty face this close after having his lips on hers, despite all her thoughts on seeing this as just another mission. She was fucking human, goddamn it, and Yugao was in for the training session of her life then they all went back home.

 

Kakashi pressed his face to the side of her head, his hands leaving her jaw so he could wrap his arm around her now that she was firmly buried against his neck. 

 

“Are you laughing ?” His question, posed lower than a whisper so no one would overhear, was more amused than accusatory but Sakura felt it jarred her back to reality. She still had a part to play. “Should I be insulted?”  

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured seriously against his neck, hoping he understood that she meant to go back to business.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he breathed in her cheek, placing a slow kiss there before speaking again, “They bought it.”

 

Sakura felt her good mood from before come back. Their little scene had worked and half their plan had successfully been put into action, now they just had to keep the ruse up with the same stakes they elevated that morning. Kakashi laced their fingers on their way back to the campfire. 

 

There was some good natured teasing going around that day, Yukio and Aya effectively breaking the invisible barrier between their trio and the rest of the group as they all took turns teasing Sakura and Kakashi and Asuma quickly jumped in, his own brand of teasing much more pointed than the others. Sakura tried to convince herself that she had to fight to keep her cheeks red.

 

Kakashi left after lunch with another quick kiss pressed to her lips and Sakura was left to her free afternoon with Asuma. Half of their forces had left with Kakashi, including Aya and Yukio—but not their partners—and the rest of the rogues went about their days like nothing was going on. Yuuto had sequestered himself inside his tent and no one had bothered him so far.

 

Sakura sat beneath a tree on the outskirts of their impromptu training grounds, the sun warming her even through her layers of clothing. She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the sky, enjoying the lazy afternoon.

 

It didn’t take too long for Asuma to come and sit down next to her. Sakura silently scooted closer to him so their arms were brushing and she could syphon off at least some of his warmth. Goddamn Water and its cold weather, all she wanted was to be able to circle her chakra faster like a proper shinobi and warm herself up.

 

“You alright there?” Asuma asked and Sakura kept her eyes closed while slowly letting her body relax against the trunk.

 

“Yep!” Akari’s bubbly personality came through even though a sleepy tone was affected. “I’m doing something real important here, Asao-kun.” Akari’s voice was teasing but Sakura knew Asuma understood her meaning because he just grunted in response. A few seconds after, she heard the sound of his lighter clicking and the smell of tobacco.

 

The reason Sakura had chosen to sit as far away as she could was because that day marked day three of their infiltration and she wanted to see if she could get into contact with Kaede. He would be around the woods surrounding their camp and if Pakkun and Chika had done their job, he would already have been warned that it was meet day.

 

“Kaede?” Sakura asked, her breath evening out as she pretended to take a sun-soaked nap next to her best friend. It took a few minutes but she got a response.

 

“Sakura-hime, are you there?”

 

"Affirmative. Updates?” Sakura got straight to the point, not knowing how much longer she would be undisturbed with the sparring going on.

 

“A part of Team Ro is watching from a distance the mission Kakashi is on. The others have circulated back to Sairyu to see if they can follow through on the Akatsuki sightings there. Tomorrow, some of them will head to the village up north and see if they can gather some more evidence that the duo went that way.” Kaede’s growly voice sounding in her ear made Sakura want to bury her fingers in his thick fur. She didn’t like having her summons so far away from her while working a mission like this one. Hearing his voice, at least, knowing he was safe for the time being, settled some of her nerves.

 

“Roger. What about the pack?” Sakura asked, already feeling someone approach them. “ We don’t have much time.”

 

“We’re trying to pick up a scent. We’re spread all over the woods but we meet constantly throughout the day to keep track of what we find.” Kaede sounded frustrated and Sakura had to fight a small smile from tugging at her lips. Despite having grown to his full size, she still thought of him as that four month old pup she met two years ago. 

 

“It’s a waiting game,” Sakura tried to reassure him. “ Meet me here again in three days. Be careful.”

 

“Oy, you sleepin’ on the job?” One of the rogue shinobi shuffled on his feet in front of them, making Sakura blink bleary eyes open as if she had just been woken up.

 

“Have some respect, will ya?” Asuma snapped.

 

“Oh, hiya! Sorry about that,” Sakura said with a big dopey smile, stretching her arms on top of her head and getting up swiftly to meet the big hulking man in front of her. “Do you need healing?”

 

“I think I broke my arm.” The rogue carefully showed her his wrist which clearly wasn’t broken. Despite the happy smile and bubbly attitude of Akari, Sakura couldn’t stand snappy rogue nin who had the pain tolerance of toddlers acting like they could be rude to her.

 

“Oh~! That must hurt!” She smiled sympathetically at him and carefully put her hands around his wrist. “Let’s check that out!”

 

Sakura squeezed and prodded his wrist for a good full minute, completely enjoying the way the rogue was trying to keep a handful of expletives from coming out in front of Asuma. She ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ thoughtfully as she messed around with his second degree sprained wrist before she finally brought healing chakra to her hands. Then, of course, she made sure to make the nerves surrounding the area she was working extremely sensitive instead of numbing it like she usually does while healing a patient without imminent threats of death.

 

The rogue left with his big cheeks red, sweat beading at his forehead and a tired grunt after Sakura’s cheery, “Come let me know if you need anything else~!”

 

“Mean, mean Akari-chan,” Asuma chuckled when Sakura sat back down next to him. Sakura laughed, settling back against the trunk of the tree but not needing to steal more of the man’s warmth after she’d gotten her chakra flowing with the small patch up job.

 

“I have no idea what you mean, Asao-kun.” Sakura tilted her head to watch the fluffy clouds surrounding them. There seemed to be rain in the distance and it would surely rain later in the night but so far the sky was perfectly clear. “Great day, isn’t it?”

 

“Sure,” Asuma said with a shrug then shot Sakura a perfunctory look when he went to offer her a cigarette. “Especially for you after you solved that little lover’s spat.”

 

Sakura accepted the cigarette without thinking, thoughtfully puffing on it as Asuma lighted it for her. That sentence could easily be constructed as light teasing between friends but the way he said it, the tone of voice no ninja could pick out across the field as they were from everyone else… it gave Sakura pause.

 

“Is it…” She started hesitantly, trying to state what she wanted to say in a way that would seem natural for their covers if anyone happened to be reading their lips. “Is it weird for you to see us like that? Even though you’re older than Kato-kun, you used to be a mentor to some of my childhood friends and… our age difference, I mean. Does it bother you?”

 

Asuma took a slow drag of his cigarette before carefully aiming the smoke away from her face as he contemplated what she was asking. Sakura knew it was pretty much already too late to be arguing about their cover stories but she was still curious. Would Asuma think it was improper? She was sure he wouldn’t have gone with that particular cover if it had been him and Ino. 

 

“I’m not stupid, Akari. I know you had a pretty different upbringing than Maru-kun and the others had.” Maru-kun, Sakura wanted to snort at the codename for Shikamaru and settled for storing it to be used later. It was a surprisingly insightful way of thinking for someone like Asuma who had never been ANBU. “I also know that despite our situation, you and Kato never had the same relationship like some of the others do.”

 

Some of the others. The other jounin sensei? It was true. Kakashi had never treated Team 7 like they were his children like Gai and even Kurenai did. His approach with them was too distant for anything like that even though Sakura knew he cared a lot. Kakashi had treated them like pack. She was just surprised Asuma had picked up on it. More and more she was realising how much he resembled Genma in some aspects and that only served to endear him further to her. She wondered why they had fallen out of touch, especially when she could see how they cared for one another. 

 

“It’s still not exactly… proper ,” Sakura said, shooting Asuma an amused look while taking another drag of her cigarette. He snorted and bumped his shoulder with hers.

 

“Who the fuck cares.” 

 

Everyone would care, Sakura wanted to say. While this was simply them faking being a couple and nothing that they would actually bring back to Konoha, she knew that even the idea of it would put off a lot of people back home. Sure, ninja had fewer scruples overall and it was often that team members got together, but it was much less often that a jounin-sensei would initiate anything with a student. And even though there were no rules against it, some serious investigation usually happened to assert that there had been no foul play. Sakura simply shrugged.

 

“Kato does.” And that was the truth. They could have gone for this more realistic acting from the beginning but Kakashi—and in some ways Sakura as well—had held back. Sakura took another drag before continuing, “I think I underestimated how much he would care and how that would affect us…”

 

“Ah.” Asuma nodded, shooting her a shrewd look. “Was that what the fight was all about?”

 

“Hm.” Sakura shrugged one shoulder. “Partially, yes. But that’s over now! We stepped up our game as a couple and came out of it stronger!” She cheesily pumped her fist in the air before shooting Asuma a thumbs up and a grin that was completely inspired by Gai and Lee.

 

Asuma laughed boisterously and stubbed his cigarette on one of the roots surrounding them before reaching for his pack.

 

“Good to know, Akari-chan.” He placed a new cigarette on his lips to light it. “Want another? You might need it for later.”

 

Ah, yes. Asuma certainly got the double meaning of her last sentence. Sakura smirked at him, laughing a little before she vehemently shook her head no.

 

“You’ll turn me into a smoker, old man!” She pushed his pack away and got up. She brushed the seat of her pants and did a few stretches before turning to look back at him. “You should get at least some practice in, you know, so you don’t get rusty . I’m gonna take a shower while everyone is still busy.”

 

“ Rusty,” Asuma grumbled while Sakura bent to place a quick kiss on the top of his head. 

 

“See ya!” She waved while walking towards the showers, her good mood definitely back.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Kakashi and the rest of the camp came back just as the sun was setting. Akari, freshly showered and in a happy mood that Sakura didn’t need to fake, greeted him with a big smile and a kiss. 

 

Yuuto was also in a good mood when he realised the mission had been a success. The caravan they had robbed was probably from some minor lord because they came back with a lot of gold and jewellery. Yuuto had clapped Kakashi on the back when the others retold the story of how he had been the only one to realise a Water shinobi had been hidden in the woods while protecting the caravan and had saved their lives and their bounty. 

 

He offered Kakashi a pick of whatever jewellery he wanted in return

and had clapped excitedly when Kakashi had chosen a delicate gold necklace and promptly given it to Sakura. It was a series of delicate chains that held a pendant of a diamond shaped emerald, connected to a gold circle by four impossibly thin gold bars. It was all very dainty and elegant and something Sakura would never have the opportunity to wear but she loved it. 

 

Sakura told herself that it was okay to like the stolen necklace because it was from a Water caravan. Whatever.

 

That night, Yuuto had brought out cheap booze from his tent and the cooks had prepared a feast compared to the simple meals they had been eating. Everyone was in a good mood and a few of the lower level rogues had even brought out a small set of traditional drums and a flute . 

 

Akari had been properly delighted by the impromptu party. She danced with Yukio and Aya when prompted and even managed to coerce Asao into joining them. While Kato had been adamant about not dancing, he had been seemingly in a good mood, pulling her into his lap and drinking whatever was offered. 

 

They kept their usual four men guard and while the party was still happening when Sakura and Kakashi decided to head back to their tent, it was significantly slowing down. 

 

They climbed inside the tent and Sakura immediately put on one of her privacy seals, making a mental note of creating more whenever she could. They easily moved around each other while taking off their outer layers and preparing for bed while Kakashi told her what he had discovered on his trip.

 

Apparently, having been chosen to go with the thieves on their way to rob a particularly hard to access caravan had meant he had gained the approval of most of the rogues and, on the way back, their mouths had been considerably looser. Kakashi had figured that during the week, Yuuto selected duos and trios to go into nearby villages to do some petty thieving but that most of their money came from robbing caravans. The intel on those caravans seemed to come from above and Kakashi had a suspicion that it was somehow related to the Akatsuki. Apparently, they had recently upgraded to robbing other shinobi and that’s why they were looking for more fighters and a medic.

 

It wasn’t much, but it was a considerable advance in their intel. Sakura found her good mood coming back with a vengeance, powered by their newest discovery and the cups of cheap shochu she had at dinner.

 

Eventually, they made their way to their makeshift bed and faced each other.

 

“Right,” he said after a long pause of looking at her searchingly. “Are you sure about this? We can… we can come up with something else. A genjutsu, maybe?”

 

Sakura smiled slightly, finding his need to check in with her again equal parts reassuring and annoying. This was a mission. They would do what they had to.

 

“We already went over this, Kakashi. A genjutsu of that magnitude would surely raise some questions and we have no idea if the other jounin have a genjutsu affinity.” Sakura cocked her head at him, her eyebrows slowly rising on her forehead. “Unless… you’re uncomfortable with this.”

 

“I’m not.” Kakashi frowned. “I just don’t want to… cross a line we can’t… uncross.” And fuck things up, was left unsaid but Sakura heard it loud and clear.

 

To be completely truthful, she also wasn’t sure that this wouldn’t be a complete game changer for the two of them. She was scared that they could possibly lose the camaraderie they had built and it was making her nervous. But in the end, she was still on a mission and she had never done anything short of whatever it took to complete one. 

 

“We’re professionals,” she reminded him, looking right into his eye as she reached forward to slide his eyepatch off. “Rule number four, a shinobi must always put the mission first.”

 

Kakashi reached forward to flick her on the forehead and she gasped in surprise. Before she could retaliate, he leaned over her to not turn off the lamp but to dim its brightness. Her heart galloped in her chest when his arm brushed her torso when he leaned back.

 

Kakashi looked at her seriously, the light making the shadows of his handsome face stand to contrast. “If we’re following through with this, I need you to be completely honest with me.” He took hold of her arm and pulled her closer. “We’ll fake whatever we can get away with.” He brought their faces together, not actually touching her but just so. “Whenever you feel uncomfortable, remember our sign for backing off.” Sakura couldn’t help but stare at him when he took his shirt off and threw it away, making sure to let it smack against the canvas of the tent. “Try it, Sakura.”

 

The last of the rogues that had been at the campfire were making their way back to their tents and the sound his shirt made when it smacked on the tent was enough to draw some attention to them. Kakashi quickly broke the privacy seal.

 

This was the last part of their plan, the one where it could possibly be more dangerous for the two of them but they had all day to back out of it and now they were going through with it. Sakura breathed a sigh when most of the people outside their tent quickly moved forward to give them privacy, even if there were a few giggles. 

 

She had already seen Kakashi without his shirt off, the night they had dyed his hair dark brown but, at that time, she had been more preoccupied with the sight of his face than his abbs. Which was a weird thought to have, she knew, but it was even weirder to see so much skin from a man who compulsively kept ninety-six percent of his body hidden beneath clothes at all times. 

 

When she had seen him without his shirt, getting ready for this mission, she wasn’t exactly in the mindset to be actually looking but now it was all she could do. Before, it was business as usual, being in a changing room with her team while they got ready wasn’t exactly something that made space for such things but now…

 

Now she was inside a tiny tent with nothing else to look at, the light was dim and their breaths sounded loud to her own ears. It wasn’t… arousing but it was tense in a way she hadn’t been expecting it to be.

 

Sakura brought one hand to slightly scratch his shoulder twice, deeming it the safer place to try out their signal again. The skin beneath her hand was warm and smooth and that made her pause more than anything. She had gotten used to sleeping next to him over the past week, wrapped around each other like lovers but it somehow felt like a far cry from this kind of intimacy. Having his warm and smooth skin against hers, Hatake Kakashi, right beneath her fingertips.

 

Sakura quickly used the hand on his shoulder to level herself on his lap and let out a shaky breath when his hands encircled her hips to guide her, low but still loud enough that if someone was outside their tent, they would hear it. The chakra signatures of the guards on patrol were fastly approaching and she knew they would come by their tent any time now.

 

“Take off your shirt, Akari.” His voice was low and dark and she supposed it would be pleasant to hear it under different circumstances.

 

Despite his words and the raspy quality to his voice, when she turned her head up to look at him, there was no telltale flush to his cheeks or sweat to his brow and his pupil wasn’t any less dilated than expected from the dimness of the tent. Kakashi wasn’t aroused and by the way he slightly raised an eyebrow at her and shut both of his eyes, he was going to take this seriously.

 

Sakura quickly took off her shirt, the sound of it hitting the bedding seemed to echo in her head as she moved to work on her bra. The rogues on patrol had stopped outside, a few steps away from their tent. Creeps. She knew her shape in the shadows cast by the lamp would be their focus so the curves of her breasts and ass needed to be visible. Sakura checked the chakra signature of the tents around theirs, a few of them were still active, including Asuma’s, and the two guards were talking in hushed whispers she could pick out with her enhanced hearing. They already had enough of an audience to go further.

 

With quick jerks that she hoped looked more eager and less like she just wanted to get the job done, Sakura brought her pants and underwear to her knees. The cool air hitting her centre forced a genuine gasp out of her. Kakashi’s grip on her tightened almost imperceptibly.

 

With his hands guiding her, Sakura set a slow, languid rhythm of rising up on her knees and coming back to his lap. Her thighs were spread over his, making contact just below his pelvis so that they weren’t actually grinding against each other.

 

Every time his hands brought her down on covered thighs, Sakura expelled a forceful breath through her mouth, not exactly moaning out loud, but letting a few whimpers out every now and then. There was no need to wake up the whole camp, all they needed was for a few people around them and the patrols to hear and see some things and, by tomorrow, no one would be able to doubt their relationship.

 

It was surreal, really. Strange and awkward to be writhing on top of a man with no clothes on while he was still mostly dressed. It was stranger even that he had his eyes adamantly closed and breath forcefully short, as if he didn’t even want to look.

 

The most surreal thing, though, was that the feeling of his bare arm against her ribs and around her hips made her want him to be looking at her. The feeling of flesh on flesh was one of the few things she missed from her relationship with Neji. Physical comfort, feeling another body next to hers, was something she enjoyed and sorely missed.

 

Sakura knew that rationally, this was like any other mission. Hell, after she had lost her virginity with Shinsei, she had even taken missions where her talents in genjutsu and iryo-ninjutsu weren’t enough and she actually had to have sex with her target. It wasn’t the most disturbing thing she’d ever done for a mission in ANBU. Her body was a tool and a weapon and she knew that. Sex, or this fake version of it, wasn’t something she was self conscious about, either. She had often hooked up with teammates while away from the village and she was never shy to go after what she wanted even if it meant being with foreign ninja she had no particular connection with.

 

But for some reason, despite the forced intimacy of the moment, she wasn’t aroused. Maybe it was the fact that she had never really seen him as a sexual being and suddenly he was all hard muscles and soft warm skin beneath her hands. Maybe it was because he had been so adamant on faking all they could or maybe it was how insultingly unaffected he was. Maybe it was the sheer awkwardness of it, the fact that Kakashi didn’t seem at all affected by her but… Sakura kind of felt herself wanting to like this, to push forward.

 

Without thinking, Sakura brought Kakashi closer, the warmth of his chest radiating towards her as she continued faking sighs and tiny moans. She accidentally pitched too close to him and her nipple, hard from the cold, brushed his chest.

 

Kakashi’s eyebrows pinched together and his eyelashes fluttered minutely and it only made Sakura angrier because, okay, he was a trained shinobi, but her nipples had literally brushed his, couldn’t he react a bit more? The next few minutes were explained by temporary madness on Sakura’s part.

 

She didn’t actually need to take things further, she knew. The two rogues outside their tent had already been moving away to continue their patrol and they had been suggestive enough already. But Sakura couldn’t help the mischievous voice of Inner, telling her to go the extra mile, the man needed to be taken down a few pegs, honestly.

 

Sakura gave in and moved her hands to twine between his surprisingly soft hair. With her hold on the dyed locks, she simultaneously levelled herself on her knees and exposed his throat. Making sure she slid her body against his torso on her way down, she muffled on his neck the dirtiest, loudest moan she had ever uttered.

 

She didn’t actually plan on sitting herself back on him because by how close she’d brought their bodies, she would surely be sitting right on top of his length and she wasn’t quite sure she even wanted that. There had been no need for such ponderings, though, because Kakashi’s hands had become iron bars around her hips when a grunt escaped him from her actions.

 

Sakura barely had a second to feel victorious before he was pushing her away. He turned around without saying anything and put his shirt back on. Sakura followed his lead and started putting herself back together, the high from her previous success at getting a reaction out of him fading quickly when he reached for the lamp, this time to turn it off. He still hadn’t looked at her.

 

“That should be enough,” he muttered.

 

And then the only light around them was the brightness from the moon outside. From the eerie blue glow of it, she could see him settle himself as far away as he could get before actually leaving the tent, his back firmly to her. 

 

Sakura put herself back together, a frown on her face. When she laid back down and closed her eyes to try and fall asleep, she couldn’t hold back a frustrated sigh. She felt like she had broken his trust somehow, made things unnecessarily hard on both of them.

 

The troubling thought that she had made him mad somehow, didn’t leave her head. Stupid fucking Inner. 

 

It was weird to not have any part of her touching him while they slept. When Sakura fell asleep that night, heart heavy on her chest, she oddly felt empty and sadder than she’d allowed herself to be in quite a long time. She wrapped herself up in her blanket and tried not to shiver.

Notes:

SO. THAT HAPPENED.

I'm mentally preparing myself for a lot of backlash (there were some of people who complained about Sakura and Shinsei, it's kinda funny actually) but I'm so SO HAPPY that I got to FINALLY put this scene (you know the one I'm talking about hehe) on a chapter because I wrote it on a notebook I use for sketching almost TWO YEARS AGO when I was still living in Australia. Fucking insane, mate. I leave on this short break in the middle of our Act 2 (kinda, I have to properly section this fic into acts/arcs tbh) but where the *major* shift in their relationship happens. It's so funny to write these scenes because like, they're clearly coming face to face with the fact that the other is like a sexual being, I guess, and while everything is so professional and even clinical, at the same time, they're two people who naturally have a lot of chemistry and well, they don't really know how to deal with it. Fuck I love this pairing. The romance isn't starting yet, but a major shift happened and I LOVE IT.

Anyway!!! Next chapter we'll have Kakashi's POV to understand how he felt about the whole thing and how the two of them are gonna move forward with the mission with this new aspect of their interactions. Also, some Asuma.

My official date for the next update is the first Friday of February (on the 5th!)!!! I'm actually so happy for this break, I'm gonna chill a bit and then write a lot ahead so I can keep up with this pace :) Please do keep in touch during the hols!! I know sometimes I let my replies to the reviews fall a bit behind but I'm pretty active on Tumblr and Twitter so make sure you follow me there so we can chat a bit!!

Thank you so so much for all of your continuous support throughout this hellish year. I wanted to keep updating for you guys to have some reprieve during these tough times but ended up having my own reprieve through your comments and general love. Thank you for the fanarts, thank you for the long, beautiful comments, thank you for reaching out on Tumblr and Twitter, thank you so so much.

ily <3

Chapter 35: Playing the Game

Notes:

Happy Fire Friday, all!! :)

I'm so so excited to be back, holy shit. A lot of you didn't seem particularly happy with things that happened in the last chapter but you gotta trust me okay? This has all been planned for a long time and I hope you enjoy it :)

Kakashi walked briskly across the camp towards the fire where Sakura and two other men were making breakfast. He saw Asuma seated on a log nearby and nodded at him but didn’t stop to chat. The space was slowly filling, hungover rogues lazily stretching and choosing places to sit but Kakashi still felt their gazes heavy on his back and he knew his and Sakura’s little scene the night before had made an impression. Gossip moved fast among ninja.

 

He didn’t know how he was supposed to be feeling about the night before. He had briefly considered waiting for Sakura to wake up so they could check in with each other but in the end decided to head towards the showers silently. 

 

The night before—and all throughout this mission, really—he’d been trying to keep things from escalating like they often did in this kind of mission. Teammates who had to fake relationships in long term assignments were common to go back to the village either as a couple or in the odds. Sure, their mission wasn’t panning out to be a particularly long one after their breakthrough the day before, but it was still something to take under consideration. Kakashi had been in this spot before but those missions were usually done in about two days and the few times he had spent more than a week with someone, it was always missions where he had to seduce the target or someone close to them; meaning there had been no fear of bringing his work back home with him.

 

Out of respect for their history and the weird position they were in, Kakashi hadn’t wanted to complicate things. Only, if he was being completely honest with himself—and he felt particularly so that morning—he had known from the moment Yugao had suggested this cover that it was a bad idea and went ahead with it either way.

 

Last night the lines had been blurred beyond recognition. If it had been any other kunoichi with him in that tent, he would have gone all the way. His peers normally didn’t have much reservation as to what lengths they took to complete a mission and Sakura sure seemed ready to do whatever it took to keep her stellar records. 

 

Kakashi was having a harder time accepting that Sakura was actually one of his peers than he thought he would have. Maybe that wasn’t exactly the problem, though. Throughout this mission so far he had done a good job of coming to terms with the fact that Sakura was a shinobi that stood on his level, he had long ago realised she wasn’t the little girl he met all those years ago. 

 

The problem was that Kakashi had no idea what box to put Sakura in. She wasn’t a student or a subordinate or even someone he could teach and guide. She was a full fledged kunoichi that didn’t need his coddling or help. 

 

However, Sakura also wasn’t someone like Yugao whom he considered a good friend and jumping through being friends to being something more and then back hadn’t been strenuous at all. Sakura and him had so much history between them, it was absolutely clear in Kakashi’s mind that the place she had in his life was more meaningful than that. 

 

For him, relationships and emotional connection had mostly been separated. He would have quick relationships, most of them with civilians outside the village while on a mission, but the ones he cared most about he held to a different kind of esteem.

 

Sakura had become one of the people inside the village that he cared most about. Their past had been rocky and unsure but, throughout all the resentment, sadness and misdirected anger, they had built a different bond than what he had with anyone else. Sakura was his family and his pack and it felt natural to put her in that particular box for a while.

 

But now… now he knew how her breasts felt pressed against his chest, her moans muffled on his skin. Her softness and scent were ingrained in his brain almost as if he’d used the Sharingan.

 

And the fact that he was attracted to those parts of her that made her a woman wasn’t even the problem, really. He was a shinobi and so was she and physical attraction was normal in their line of work, it was expected with the way they were wired to be physical and follow their instincts. It was a mere inconvenience at times, something to be ignored or acted upon without much discrimination.

 

The root of the problem was that Kakashi now knew intimate things about Sakura that didn’t quite fit inside the tidy box of family, pack, friend . He now knew how she liked to bundle up for sleep because her feet got cold, he knew how she felt inside his arms as they slept next to each other, the cadence her breaths took as she fell asleep. Kakashi knew how Sakura looked like when she first woke up and he knew the tiny breathy sound she made when she scooched impossibly closer towards him just before she opened her eyes.

 

Kakashi’s thoughts were a jumbled mess inside his head and he had no idea how to deal with them.

 

And like most things Kakashi didn’t know what to do with, he put it carefully away and focused on his duties. He’d see this mission through, get his pay and take another solo mission as soon as they got back to Konoha. Like a good shinobi.

 

Kakashi raked a hand through his disturbingly short hair while he purposefully strode up to Sakura where she stood cleaning her hands near the cooking pit. He brought his arms around her tiny waist from behind when he was close enough, letting no hesitation show when he leaned down to bump his nose against her jaw affectionately before planting a quick kiss to her cheek.

 

Growing up as he did, he didn’t have a whole lot of people around him that showed emotions and even fewer of those were the romantic types. Kakashi had learned the basics of seduction during his days in ANBU and even had come to excel at it but his personal life was sorely lacking in that department. Not that he wasn’t happy with the way things were. That was exactly how he liked things to be. Uncomplicated.

 

Which was exactly the opposite from this whole situation because when he approached Sakura trying to figure out which type of affectionate gesture he should go with for their audience, the first thing that had come to mind was Minato-sensei and how he used to hug Kushina-san from behind whenever he entered the room.

 

And the second image that had crossed his fucked up mind was the most troubling of all. The only picture his father kept of his mother at the Hatake house was in his study. The two of them young and in love and getting married. Hatake Midori smiling brilliantly at the camera and Hatake Sakumo nuzzling her jaw, the wolf instincts ever present in the Hatake line making their show of affection manifest close to what their animals did.

 

He didn’t know why he was remembering such troublesome things. Kakashi only knew that he had terrible nightmares with Rin and Obito the night before and that he was tense that morning and what would be a good idea at the moment was to focus on the mission. If he had to make their cover more believable, then he would. He just had to remind himself that Sakura and him had set up a code to tell the other to back off and that she seemed experienced enough with the procedures for this type of mission to actually use it if need be.

 

There were a lot of catcalls all around them and Kakashi felt the rush of satisfaction that came with accomplishing something mission related despite the conflicting thoughts still rattling inside his brain. He’d convinced them enough. Now they could focus on the real mission.

 

Kakashi leaned back but kept his arms around Sakura’s waist. It was enough to see the slightest of blushes forming across her cheeks. A part of him felt smug after her little stunt the night before. He knew she’d been testing his limits and seeing her like this today was more than enough payback. The other part of him found it endearing that she could not bat an eye at stripping in front of him but could go red at a simple peck on the cheek. After a second of consideration he wondered if she was faking the blush and concluded she positively could and would do so.

 

Kakashi had to fight against a laugh at that thought.

 

He was broken out of his thoughts by Asuma’s loud bark of laugh and a hand clapping his shoulder roughly.

 

“I guess no more doghouse for you, eh, old friend?” 

 

To anybody else it would look like he was just a guy goading his best friend, but Kakashi heard the way his laugh was a bit too loud and the half millimetre his eyes were widened more than usual.

 

Sarutobi Asuma was freaked out. At least a little bit. It seemed their show had been convincing enough to fool his friend and Kakashi would be damned if that didn’t make him want to fuck around with him a bit more. He never claimed to be the type of friend that didn’t go around pushing buttons and whatnot. His plans to fuck with Asuma were interrupted by Sakura stepping out of his hold.

 

“For the sake of not murdering my husband’s best friend, I’ll let that slide but you still owe me your biggest piece of meat for that cheek, Asao-kun.” She hooked her arms around his and Asuma’s and moved them closer to the fire. “Now come on, get us something to eat fast so we can get a good spot to enjoy our day off.” 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Kakashi settled better against the trunk of a tree, a safe distance away from the rest of the gang. Asuma, Sakura and him had chosen a spot that let them be seen but not heard and it was absolutely perfect after way too long stuck in close quarters with every single one of those rogues. 

 

Sakura was nestled against his side, her head pressing against his shoulder as she hugged his arm between hers. Asuma was on her other side, smoking quietly and occasionally sharing it with Sakura when she sent him a not so subtle puppy dog eye. It was peaceful, in a weird way. 

 

The days had gotten less rainy but only marginally less cold. Kakashi could appreciate the sun beaming down on them and the warmth that Sakura’s body provided. He missed Icha Icha.

 

The day before Sakura had trapped him inside the showers to talk. They kept one of the showers running and the door locked to make it seem like something was going on but had talked quietly in the quickly steaming room. 

 

By then it had been three days since things… escalated between them. Sakura, surprisingly, was worried about him. 

 

She had been acting accordingly to their ruse, taking her cues from him and responding perfectly but he had felt a kind of tension coming from her over the few days that had gone by. For a few moments he wondered if he had somehow crossed a boundary with her but everything that had happened between them had been clearly set by her; exactly how he wanted it.

 

Despite knowing that they had both agreed that they would do whatever it took to finish the mission, Kakashi still wanted for Sakura to take the reigns. He would be… not exactly comfortable but okay with whatever happened and even though she seemed to be on the same page, he didn’t want to accidentally embarrass her or make her uncomfortable.

 

He had no idea that’s what she had been feeling as well. 

 

Sakura had been concerned that she had overstepped her boundaries that night in their tent and even though what she did had not been exactly necessary, he couldn’t exactly begrudge her. He was okay with everything that could have possibly happened that night and even though their cover didn’t need to be that thorough at the time, it was amusing that she had wanted to get a reaction out of him.

 

Well, at least Kakashi thought it was after he’d gotten over the shock of hearing that moan come out of her mouth. 

 

He could have been angry, sure, maybe he even should have, but the fact was that they were on a mission and they knew what they were getting into after they accepted Yugao’s idea. It was always a possibility and one they had prepared for accordingly, setting codes to ensure the other was okay and clearly stating out loud that they would go all in if necessary.

 

Besides, Kakashi was enjoying seeing this side of Sakura. 

 

It had freaked him out at first, but he had quickly gotten into the swing of things and now he could properly appreciate how much she had changed. In many ways Sakura had become closed off and work driven over the past years and while he completely understood that, it was still nice to see that she could let loose sometimes, enjoy missions and what they entailed beyond her duty. 

 

He couldn’t exactly blame her, even if a part of him was still reeling in shock.

 

The day before, Kakashi had made sure to tease her in the bathroom while they had their conversation but it was mostly for show. They had to be extremely comfortable with each other in this mission for it to succeed and he didn’t want to create any more tension than what was already hanging over them.

 

Kakashi realised he had dozed off when his head slowly fell on top of Sakura’s. 

 

He inhaled slowly and deeply, taking in her scent and the smell of the forest around them lazily. Kakashi squeezed her hand almost unknowingly as he revelled in the contrast between the crisp air and her radiating warmth. It took him a minute to realise he couldn’t smell Asuma anymore.

 

“Did he go already?” Kakashi asked, his voice gravely from his short nap. Sakura shivered from beside him and Kakashi finally opened his eye before stretching back.

 

“Yep,” Sakura answered softly. 

 

Kakashi stretched both arms above his head before settling back against the tree. Asuma had left with about half the camp to intercept another caravan nearby and the rest of them were either busy making dinner, playing cards or sparring in the clearing in front of them.

 

Kakashi shot Sakura a sideways glance.

 

“Are you cold?” 

 

She wasn’t shivering exactly but the wind was picking up a bit and she seemed tense.

 

“No,” Sakura answered while nodding her head yes. Kakashi shot a quick look back at the camp to see some people trying to watch them. It was Yukio and that girl Aya, gossiping in the corner of their makeshift sparring ring while waiting for their turn.

 

Kakashi fought the urge to roll his eyes and sighed imperceptibly. 

 

“C’mere.” He opened his left arm so she could fit better against his side, using his hold on her to act like he was trying to warm her up. 

 

“Thanks, Kato-kun.” Sakura smiled brightly at him, her eyes dancing with amusement as they locked onto his before she leaned forward to kiss him. On his beauty mark. Kakashi knew she was messing with him by doing it. 

 

One of the things he had noticed about Sakura recently was that she loved to tease. And she was a bit of a jerk.

 

Kakashi could relate to that.

 

“Hmhm.” He smirked at her when she leaned back and looked at him in suspicion. Kakashi was pretty sure she knew what he was going to do by the widening of her eyes but he still felt like checking in with her. “Okay, partner?”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes at him and the very top of her cheeks darkened with a blush Kakashi wasn’t sure he trusted. Sakura wasn’t innocent in any way and he had firmly reached a point where he didn’t really believe her coyness. His suspicions were confirmed when she went back in for another kiss, this one slower, a bit north of his beauty spot, close to the corner of his mouth.

 

She lingered there for a few seconds while Kakashi listened to Yukio and Aya’s excited chattering, the wind in their favour that late afternoon. Kakashi waited for Sakura to pull back for another second and when she didn’t, he slightly turned his head towards her.

 

The first brush of their lips was gentle and not at all like their almost aggressive teasing of each other. Her lips curved at the corners into a smile and he wondered for a beat if she was going to start laughing like the last time but then his mind caught up to him and he realised he had felt her smile. 

 

The action felt more intimate than the kiss and for some reason that made the air catch in his lungs for a second before he leaned further into the kiss, trying to make that warm intimate feeling of it go away. Kakashi tried to bring this towards a place that he knew, a place he was comfortable with and could recognise for what it was; so instead of pulling back and risking her seeing the confusion in his face, he pushed forward.

 

With his free hand, he tilted her head up by her jaw and settled his lips more firmly to hers, capturing her bottom lip between his. Sakura exhaled harshly and Kakashi pushed one step further because he just wasn’t ready to go back and face whatever that had been.

 

He knew the physicality of it. He knew attraction and desire and sexual tension. He knew how to deal with it. So he went for it, if only for a few seconds.

 

His tongue slipped out to taste her, to try and distract her from the fact that his breath had stuttered when she smiled. When Sakura opened her mouth against his, he pulled her tongue into a slow dance, trying to keep her in that moment and nothing else.

 

He moved his hand to the back of her neck and tightened his hold on her, desperately trying to remember any of his moves. Sakura, despite having initially seemed surprised, suddenly leaned into him, curling her legs between them so she could turn towards him. 

 

The arm that had been hanging off her shoulders fell to her back and Kakashi grabbed the fabric of her hoodie to bring her closer. The troubling truth was that he wasn’t sure if he was doing it just because it would be a good move. 

 

Sakura tucked herself inside his arms and raised one hand to his chest, scratching slightly at the fabric there before slowly sliding it down towards his stomach. Kakashi’s muscles contracted without his permission and he had a panicked moment where he wondered how far down she’d go.

 

Of course, she didn’t go far at all, stopping well above his navel, they were still in public after all but it didn’t matter because she still managed to take his breath away. Sakura, little jerk that she was, bit into his bottom lip, maybe a bit harder than a normal civilian would appreciate but to an elite ninja like Kakashi? He had to fight to keep his reactions in check.

 

Feeling like he had entered a game he hadn’t been prepared for, Kakashi tightened his grip on her and pulled back, keeping his eyes on her face only because it would seem weird to anyone watching if he didn’t. 

 

The truth was he wasn’t sure if this outcome had been any better than that strange intimacy.

 

Sakura was looking up at him through slightly hooded eyes, her lips slick and invitingly pink and twin cherry spots on her cheeks. Sure, this he knew. He was familiar with this. But Kakashi didn’t know if seeing her face like that was any better than feeling her smile so softly like before. 

 

He had played a game and he wasn’t sure he had come out on top. 

 

A catcall from the distance called their attention and Kakashi turned to see one of the younger members of the group looking at them with his fingers between his lips. He had apparently just taken out his sparring partner and was still standing in the middle of the makeshift fighting ring.

 

“Got something to say, kid?” Kakashi called, lazily disentangling himself from Sakura and getting up. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head for show and continued forward to step into the ring. “I think I should teach you a lesson about respecting your elders.” 

 

It was a bit showy and too overly confrontational but he wasn’t actually trying to hurt the kid. Despite the fight being laughably easy considering his rank, Kakashi forced himself not to use any of his skills and simply revelled in the feel of his knuckles smacking on the poor kid’s… everything. 

 

He held back. Tremendously. But it was still a nice way to let some of his pent up energy go, and especially to avoid dealing with the consequences of his actions.

 

Kakashi pummeled the kid and then the next and then everyone that had queued up to fight that afternoon. When dinner was called, he made his and Sakura’s plates and sat down next to her like nothing had happened. 

 

He didn’t acknowledge any of her looks, simply put his arm around her when he was finished as they settled against their seats. When Asuma came back with the rest of the crew, he drank everything handed to him and only stopped when he felt he wouldn’t be able to walk straight towards their tent. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura squinted her eyes at Kakashi’s profile.

 

Sunlight was still just beginning to tease them through the canvas and the chill of the early morning kept her firmly buried beneath their covers. She would usually scooch closer to Kakashi to leech some of his warmth—the man was a furnace and it wasn’t like he needed the extra warmth anyway—but she took the moment to observe him unencumbered.

 

Sakura couldn’t really figure him out. She had been absolutely certain she had fucked up that first night they faked having sex but the next morning he had been completely unfazed by it. She had, of course, obsessed over it for a few days before finally caving and confronting him about it and he had… teased her. Like she wasn’t right in apologizing for crossing his boundaries and it was cute that she would think so despite him clearly having had a negative reaction to her pushings.

 

Still, that was nothing compared to what had happened the day before.

 

Sakura wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she had underhandedly teased him about his beauty mark but she had not been expecting Kakashi to go for the kiss like that. And he didn’t even try to fake it like their first one, he just… he really went for it. 

 

Like they were alone and she was a target he was trying to seduce.

 

Because really, that’s what it had been. Sakura had been in his place enough times to realise that he was putting the moves on her, purposefully . She had become a master at it and it was frankly insulting that he didn’t realise she would pick up on it.

 

Despite it being a nice kiss—a really, really nice kiss that did leave her wanting more even though the shinobi in her frowned at the thought—Sakura had recognised the action for what it was. A seduction technique. A diversion technique. 

 

At first she had thought he had done it because Yukio and Aya had been watching them for too long but then he had quickly pushed away from her and proceeded to obliterate their ‘fellow’ crewmates in the sparring ring. It would seem to anyone else like Kato had been defending her honour but Sakura knew it was more than that. 

 

Then Kakashi had continued into their evening by drinking more than he probably should have on a mission—even if the mission required them to blend in with the bandits—and while he kept their cover appropriately, Sakura felt he had kept a rather poignant distance between them.

 

Nothing others would notice, of course, but their interaction had been strictly for their cover. He hadn’t tried to use any code with her and Asuma to talk about the mission, or divert her attention to something possibly belonging to the case with a subtle touch. He had gone straight to sleep when they went to their tent, not even bothering to change his clothes.

 

Now Sakura was watching him as he slept, using the rare moment of being awake before him to try and figure out what was going on inside his head. 

 

After a few more minutes of going over different things in her head, Sakura gave up with a huff and turned to face the top of the canvas. It was stupid to be thinking about anything other than the mission at the moment. He was her partner, their covers were intact and they had a mission objective to complete.

 

With that, Sakura got up and promptly stripped from the clothes she had been using as pyjamas. The air was cool even inside the tent so she quickly jumped into her day clothes and started to pull her hair up in a ponytail before Kakashi groaned from behind her. 

 

He was slowly pushing himself to a seating position with one hand while the other buried inside the messy hair hanging over his closed Sharingan. He squinted at her in the semi-darkness around them and Sakura snorted. He looked fucking miserable. 

 

“Here, drink this.” Sakura let her hair fall around her shoulders to hand him the water bottle next to her pack. He accepted it with a grimace and Sakura smirked at him before sitting back down on their bedroll. “Do you want me to fix that?”

 

Kakashi grumbled something at her that she took as a yes, and Sakura scooched closer to take his head between her hands. Most of his headache was from dehydration but she could settle some of it and stimulate the cells in his liver into working faster. 

 

This close to him she could smell yesterday’s alcohol in his breath and while it wasn’t a particularly inviting smell, it was overpowered by his scent. Ever since the mission had begun, she had been constantly circling small amounts of chakra to heighten her senses like she had trained with the pack so she wouldn’t miss anything. It had a peculiar side effect of making her more susceptible to noticing his scent. He was, after all, part of her pack.

 

“Thanks,” Kakashi mumbled, looking significantly better but still with a sort of far away look to his face. 

 

Sakura hummed and dropped her hands to her lap but didn’t pull away. She was going to get the mission going, she was. But first she just wanted to check in.

 

“We’re okay?”

 

“Are we—” They interrupted the other and Sakura didn’t fight the smile that wanted to stretch at her lips. “We’re okay, Kato… I’ll head over to make breakfast now, okay? I think Yuuto-sama was looking for me earlier.”

 

Sakura was relieved that they were okay and wanted to quickly divert their attention back to the mission, reminding him that they still didn’t know a lot of things about this operation. Kakashi nodded and stretched a bit, his usual slouch disappearing. 

 

“I’ll probably spend the day with Asao since tomorrow there’s going to be another heist,” he offered.

 

Good. He would check in with Asuma to see what else he had discovered in his mission while Sakura tried to work Yuuto as best as she could. They were back on track.

 

“Alright.” Sakura pressed a kiss to his cheek even though she knew there wasn’t anyone outside their tent to witness their interaction and got up. “Drink lots of water!”

 

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The camp was a happy mess that day. There had been another heist and with it a good loot of booze and gold and they would head out to another visit to the village since it was a Friday. Not everyone got to go every Friday, only Yuuto, but that one was in their rotation and Sakura, Kakashi and Asuma were happy for the reprieve going into town would provide. 

 

At least that’s what they were showing on the outside, but the truth was that Sakura would be staying behind. Kakashi would maintain a clone throughout the day with a henge over it since none of the other jounin were going and Sakura was going to infiltrate Yuuto’s tent to see what he had hidden away.

 

It was a tricky plan for several reasons. First, it was a bit of a risk for Kakashi to maintain such a chakra draining jutsu through a whole day and it was very probably going to make him weak at night and weak wasn’t something any of them should be during this mission. Then there was the fact that the other three jounin in camp would be staying behind and Sakura would have to evade them all day. Despite the setbacks, it was worth the risk. 

 

Although they had made great progress in figuring out the different routes the camp attacked, they still didn’t know how they were aware that the caravans would go by those routes at those specific times. Someone had to be giving out that information and although Sakura’s gut told her it was probably related to the Akatsuki, they still hadn’t confirmed this and didn’t even know what kind of deal it was.

 

Sakura had made great progress in getting closer to the other members of the crew, however. At first people had been standoffish aside from Yukio and Aya, but after healing some of them and working alongside others, they had opened up to Sakura. Well, to Akari, really. Sakura had nowhere near the amount of sweetness that her perky cover did to pull that off. 

 

It was annoying at times, always being sweet and happy but it was quickly made into a game for Sakura to see how many people she could trick with her sunny disposition. She had so far won over at least half of the camp, making them underestimate her greatly and letting her in on some important conversations. 

 

Sakura, hidden in her genjutsu and with the chakra signature matching the frog next to her, strode silently into the woods. She walked slowly and without hurry just short of a kilometre north until she stopped.

 

Kaede was sitting on his haunches, his electric-blue eyes piercing right into hers even though he couldn’t see her. 

 

“ Sakura-hime.” His deep voice was cheery even with the seriousness of the situation as it rang inside her head. 

 

Kaede despite having grown up to his full adult form was still a puppy in her eyes and even though his voice had deepened as much as his dad’s, he still had a carefree disposition about him that endeared her endlessly. She reached out to press her forehead to his.

 

“ Kaede. ” She smiled slightly, letting her nose pick up his comforting scent for a few seconds before she stepped back and got right into business. “ What do you have to report?”

 

“ Team Ro is still investigating the duo spotted in the village. There have been no further sightings of them. ” Kaede huffed slightly and Sakura could only imagine if he was a human, he would be pouting. “ No one seemed to pick up any different scents around the woods either.”

 

“ So… no progress.” Sakura sighed imperceptibly, already annoyed. She wanted to keep this mission going forward but it seemed they would have to wait longer before dismantling the operation. She scratched Kaede behind his ears. “ It’s okay. Good job out there, pup. You be careful, okay? I’ll see you in three days.”

 

Sakura could feel his hesitation. Kaede didn’t like having her alone any more than she liked leaving her pack unattended in the woods. In the end, though, they trusted each other and they had their duty to attend to. Sakura to her village and Kaede to her commands. She scratched him one more time before turning to leave.

 

“ The Hatake pup is not around… ” Kaede stopped her before she could walk any further.

 

“ He’s not a pup, Kaede. He’s older than you. ” Sakura turned to smile teasingly at him and he flicked his ears a few times before huffing.

 

“ I don’t like leaving you alone in the camp without them here. ” 

 

Sakura wanted to be annoyed but Kaede was just… so cute when he was worried. 

 

“ I could use a lookout, ” Sakura offered but continued before he could get too enthusiastic, “ but Chika would probably be a better choice. ”

 

Now he was definitely pouting. Sakura snickered quietly and ruffled his fur. She wanted him to stay with her just as much but she couldn’t risk her mission. Kaede seemed to understand that because he nodded slightly before lightly biting at her wrist and moving quickly through the trees after telling her to wait for Chika at the outskirts of the camp.

 

Sakura moved in place and had to wait only ten minutes before Chika was breaking through the treeline in a careful trot.

 

“ Hiya, Chika. ” Sakura smiled even though the wolf couldn’t see it and moved to pet her pretty white fur. “ I need you to hide in a genjutsu outside the tent. If you see anyone coming too close, pretend you’re a stray and bark some to let me know to get the fuck out. ”

 

“ Roger that, ” Chika replied cheerfully, already incredibly disguised. 

 

They moved silently towards Yuuto’s tent while Sakura used the least amount of chakra possible to keep track of the jounins’ chakra signatures. The tent was huge and had two separate rooms. One was filled with crates overflowing with all types of trinkets, a small table with four chairs and a lamp.

 

Sakura didn’t waste much time in that room, much more interested in the second one. It was an office and a bedroom at the same time. Yuuto’s cot was overflowing with furs in the corner and there was a beautiful wooden desk with many papers sitting haphazardly on top of it.

 

Sakura ruffled through the papers quickly while Inner memorised what was written in them. It wasn’t anything interesting, exactly. Plans for possible heists that had been scratched out, letters from Yuuto’s brother and a few love letters from someone who signed only K. 

 

Sakura memorised everything to work on later, she would check for codes when she was safe. The first drawer held a few stacks more of letters and some stationary. Sakura was still ruffling through it when she felt Yukio’s chakra signature moving closer. 

 

He was clearly heading her way but she was confident she had a few minutes more before she absolutely had to leave. 

 

The second drawer was opened much more carefully because there seemed to be a trap in it. Nothing tricky, something an Academy student could have figured out and Sakura eased her way into the drawer quickly, finding a stack of files hidden away.

 

Files on every shinobi in the camp.

 

Fucking jackpot, Sakura thought, a slow smile gracing her lips for a few seconds before her features were schooled once again. Sakura quickly moved through the files, committing to memory every skill, backstory and info on every single one of the ninja in the crew. At the very bottom was hers and her team’s.

 

They hadn’t known much about them, like they had planned. There was a brief physical description of them and estimates on their level and their preferred way of fighting, which of course was every bit fake. Sakura’s file only said that she was married to Kato and knew basic medical-ninjutsu. 

 

She made a quick mental note to come back there to destroy their files anyway before the mission was complete. 

 

The last drawer was locked. 

 

Sakura fished her lockpicks from her pouch and got to work. Over the years she had developed her abilities in lockpicking to the point that she could probably do it blindfolded within a few seconds. The lock clicked and the drawer slid open at the same time she felt Yukio’s chakra signature right across the fire pit. He was way too close for comfort and she knew Chika would probably interfere soon. She had to get a move on.

 

The drawer was almost empty. There were a few pens and some paper thrown around but Sakura couldn’t figure out why Yuuto would have kept it locked. Something was wrong.

 

Yukio had stopped at their fire pit and with her enhanced senses Sakura could hear him talking to the cook of the day about their lunch. Sakura pressed her hand around the confines of the drawer until she found it. A secret bottom.

 

Sakura quickly got it open at the same time as Yukio started to circle the fire. He was getting too close. 

 

Sakura quickly rooted around the hidden compartment and pulled out an iron box. It fit in both her hands and didn’t open despite there not being a keyhole. 

 

Yukio was almost on her side of the fire.

 

Sakura quickly moved the box in every direction until she noticed that there seemed to be a small discoloured circle on the lid. She quickly probed her chakra into it, just the tiniest amount, and confirmed her fears.

 

Chika barked outside and Sakura heard a commotion near the fire pit. 

 

Taking this as her cue, she carefully set the box back where it belonged and tidied up after herself. She quickly moved around setting things exactly where they had been and squeezed against the entrance of the tent when the noise outside got louder.

 

Sakura had taken just a few steps away from the tent before she froze. Yukio was standing just a few meters from her, kneeling next to Chika and petting her fur excitedly.

 

There were about four people around him, none of them above chunin level. Sakura was hidden enough to fool the elite, she knew that and she trusted her skills but Yukio could probably find her if he was a sensor type or if he noticed something odd about Chika’s sudden appearance.

 

“A dog!” he exclaimed, completely enamoured by Chika as she huffed and licked his hand, her tail wagging excessively. 

 

Sakura backed away until she couldn’t be seen or heard and took to the trees as soon as she could. She trusted Chika’s abilities but it was hard not to worry about the little wolf and how she would escape Yukio’s clearly delighted hold. Thank fuck for her fluffy white furry ass. She would get a huge rabbit in return.

 

Sakura met up with Kaede again, quickly roped him into hunting the biggest rabbit he could find for Chika and then the two of them waited for her to show up.

 

“ That guy is so, so grabby, Sakura-hime! ” Chika complained, her fur sticking up in some places, making Sakura want to laugh. She composed herself, though, and kneeled down to present the tiny annoyed wolf with her offering.

 

“ I’m sorry, Chicchan. ” Chika couldn’t see Sakura with her genjutsu on but Sakura smiled all the same. “ Here you go! A nice wild hare for your troubles. Thanks for having my back. ”

 

“ Always! ” Chika exclaimed, her eyes widening in delight at the sight of the carcass. 

 

Goodbye wasn’t any harder, but Sakura was feeling much lighter. The box was a clever piece of technology that worked as one of the safest places to store away something you didn’t want found. The owner would get a small key with a circle at the end that matched the circle on the lid of the box and infuse their chakra in the key. The first time the key was pressed in the faux keyhole, the box’s hidden seals would work to only open with that chakra signature. 

 

In other words, it was a lock she couldn’t pick. 

 

She could have torn the metal apart with her bare hands, sure, but that was kind of counterproductive since they didn’t actually want to be noticed doing anything suspicious before they could take down the whole gang. She had to find the key and her bet was that Yuuto had it on himself.

 

Sakura waited until lunch was over and no one was around the fire pit to sneak in and grab a few bowls. One for herself now and two for when Kakashi came back. The track to her tent was easy to make without detection and once inside she sat comfortably in her bedroll and ate her lunch.

 

Sakura easily kept her genjutsu up and her chakra hidden as she leaned back on her small cot and closed her eyes. Food had helped keep her reserves high and a little bit of meditation wouldn’t hurt.

 

The next time she opened her eyes, Kakashi was entering the tent.

 

Sakura dispelled her genjutsu at the same time he did his clone and watched as he seemed to startle and wince at the same time. Sakura couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped her when he quickly recomposed himself and managed to muster enough strength to glare at her.

 

Sakura offered her pilfered bowls of rice and meat as a peace offering and he gratefully took both before sprawling next to her with a tired sigh. Sakura put a hand to his nape as he ate to check his system and quietly hummed to herself as he devoured the food without ceremony.

 

His chakra levels weren’t dangerously low but it was enough to make anyone tired if you weren’t in a fight with the proper levels of adrenaline to keep you up. Kakashi seemed to tense and sigh at the same time at the feeling of her chakra in his system or maybe it was her hand on him, she didn’t know. But he did look at her briefly before going back to his meal.

 

Between bites, he talked to her about the day they supposedly had together to fill her in and Sakura committed to memory everything about it in case she had to bring up conversation. Thankfully, their cover made it so there was no reason for them to be seen apart and he could truthfully rely every encounter she could possibly need to use as a cover.

 

“Did you have fun today?” Kakashi asked after he was done. 

 

He had given her his bowl to be put away with hers and was now fully leaning back on their beddings, one arm between his head and the pillow and the other on top of his stomach. His eye was drooping more than usual and Sakura knew he was fighting the need to sleep. Some of his reserves had already gotten better since eating but the full stomach had only made him sleepier. Sakura knew he wouldn’t appreciate her smiling at him like he was a child but she couldn’t help if he looked so fucking adorable when sleepy. 

 

“I had tons of fun, babe.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him making him huff a short laugh before her words seemed to catch up to him. He knew she meant she had found something.

 

Kakashi immediately tried to sit up but Sakura stopped him with a hand to his chest. She gently pushed him back to bed, her head shaking slightly to convey it was okay and not the time to discuss anything. 

 

“Akari…” He trailed off, unsure of what was happening but Sakura simply smiled reassuringly.

 

“It’s okay, you should take a nap! I’ll take a quick shower and take my shift at the cooking pit. I’ll come wake you up when dinner’s ready.” Sakura knew he didn’t like the idea but it was a testament to how tired he was that he simply narrowed his eye at her for a few seconds before relaxing back into their pillows. 

 

His gaze fell on her hand and it was only then that Sakura realised it was still resting against his chest. It felt reassuring, his warmth beneath her fingertips, the force of his breaths moving her hand up and down and his heartbeat steady and strong. He was alive and with her and Sakura was a bit overwhelmed for a few breaths by how it gave her such relief to feel it.

 

She happily took a deep breath, letting his scent calm her further and then got up without looking at him or acknowledging the strange pause. Sakura left the tent with only an absentminded wave. 

 

She bumped into Asuma on her way to the showers. They talked for a bit, enough for him to be reassured she knew about their day and for her to tell him that had been a development in their mission, but kept it short. Sakura quickly made her way inside and closed herself with her stuff inside the stall. The others were occupied and it wasn’t exactly the reprieve she wanted but the cold water was enough to shock her out of her weird mood. 

 

Sakura put on her heavier clothes when she was done, knowing her wet hair so close to dusk would be a bitch to deal with in the cold. Thankfully, the fire from their cooking pot warmed her up while she worked. 

 

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Sakura pressed against his side for the third time that night. It was a particularly cold one and even though Kakashi didn’t usually feel cold, he could feel the crisp chill in the air. Thunder crackled ominously in the distance and he could smell rain in the air. 

 

People ate quickly, talking quietly in small groups as they sipped on warm sake. Beside him, Asuma was done with his food and was chain smoking to keep himself warm. Kakashi had already put his own bowl away and was slowly making his way through his warmed bottle as Sakura finished her dinner.

 

The next time she pressed closer, he put an arm around her and used his hands to press some warmth to her arms.

 

“Do you want me to get you another coat?” Kakashi asked, getting concerned at how pale she looked and the fact that the very tip of her nose was turning red. 

 

“My warm hoodie is washing,” Sakura sulked as she finished the last bites of her food. She quickly reached to put her bowl away before sliding further into his hold. “Maybe we could go to bed soon?”

 

As much as Kakashi knew she was bothered by the cold, he also knew that she had posed that question because she was trying to find a way to get him alone so they could talk about her discoveries while he was gone. It seemed like Asuma had already been made aware of the fact she had made some progress but there was no way the three of them could discuss strategies together for now. Asuma would have to follow their lead blindly for now.

 

“Finish your sake.” Kakashi pointed with his chin towards her own warmed bottle and finished his quickly before turning towards Asuma. “Too bad you don’t have anyone to keep you warm, heh?”

 

Asuma snorted while Sakura rolled her eyes but Kakashi merely sent him a teasing smirk. Kato would tease Asao about something like this and Asao wouldn’t let it go without it becoming a semi-fight. They argued back and forth while Sakura intervened with occasional cheerful comments and worked on warming herself up with her warmed up drink.

 

It started raining before Sakura finished her sake. By the time everyone not on guard shift had made a quick run towards their tents only a few minutes had gone by so Kakashi thankfully wasn’t fully drenched. His hair and shirt were damp, and Sakura had pulled her hood over her head so they were fairly unscathed from the whole ordeal.

 

As soon as they stepped foot inside their tent, thunder crackled in the sky and the rain started pelting faster against the canvas. 

 

Kakashi and Sakura worked silently around each other, taking some clothes off while putting others on and it was only when he was fully ready for bed that he noticed Sakura was ruffling through her pack in frustration. 

 

“Stupid chakra, stupid Akari, stupid weather, stupid fucking Water,” she mumbled to herself. 

 

Kakashi took pity on her and grabbed a long sleeved shirt from his own pack and handed it to her.

 

“You can borrow this for tonight.” Sakura’s eyes brightened as she hastened in putting on the extra layer. “I do expect you to give this back to me, however. You still technically owe me a shirt.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and climbed into bed with him.

 

“Do I have to remind you that what’s yours is mine, dear husband?” She sassed while wiggling around to find a good position.

 

“Not my shirt.”

 

Sakura huffed a laugh and drove a ponty little elbow into his ribs that made the air in his lungs expel harshly. He shot her a glare but couldn’t sustain it for long. She was impossibly cold from their dash through the starting rain and even though their situation was largely better, she was looking like she was on the verge of shivers. She looked pitiful , really.

 

With one long suffering sigh, Kakashi reached for her and pulled her into his chest, making sure the blanket was still closed behind her. She sighed and snuggled closer and pressed her ridiculously cold nose to his neck. Kakashi grumbled a complaint with no heat behind it and settled better against their cot.

 

“Want to tell me what happened now?” he asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

 

He had already checked for any chakra signatures nearby, everyone was inside their tents other than the guards for the night. Besides, with how heavy the rain was pelting, no one would be able to hear them.

 

“I found a chakra box,” Sakura said into his neck, her voice matching his tone. Kakashi made a little hum of interest and waited for her to continue. “He probably keeps the key with him at all times but I think I have a plan that might work. Either way, I also found some letters to his brother and his lover K, and most importantly, I found files on all of us.”

 

“All of us?” Kakashi asked.

 

“Yep,” Sakura replied, “known skills, background, everything. We can go over them tonight and try and pass some of it on to Asuma before we make a move. Yukio, Aya and Kenji are less of a problem than we anticipated. While they could probably pass as jounin, any jounin in the Leaf would be able to take them on. They’re nowhere near S-Rank.”

 

Kakashi hummed again and tried not to hiss when her cold toes—cold even through her socks, he didn’t know how it was even fucking possible—sneaked beneath the fabric of his pants to press at his shin. His attention was quickly grabbed by the fact that she had moved enough to almost hug him in this position, her arm slung over his chest while the other curled between them. He waited for her to move closer, to press a leg between his and fully accept the position they had put themselves in but Sakura simply stayed like she was; her toes on his shin and her hand curling above his chest.

 

Kakashi cleared his throat.

 

“What’s your plan?” he asked, eyes forcibly screwed shut.

 

“It’s not a good one,” Sakura admitted. “We can wait for him to be comfortable enough in letting me heal him so I can get it off him or wait until next Friday for him to go to the village.”

 

“You want to grab it from him there?” Kakashi asked, carefully considering the situation. “Could work if he’s not alert. We can easily make the trip back here and then back to the village if needed in under fifteen minutes.”

 

“That’s what I thought,” Sakura agreed before she did a weird little shrug. “It would be easier if I did it here while treating him, though.”

 

Kakashi hummed again, deep in thought. He considered every situation carefully, not yet settling in any concrete plan but pleased nonetheless that they had managed to make some kind of progress. 

 

“I also saw some scratched plans for a new heist.” Kakashi startled a bit when Sakura began speaking but became progressively more alert as she talked. “It seemed like it would go down on Wednesday. If we could get the key before then, I think it’s very likely the heist will be our perfect opportunity to take over.” 

 

“Do you think we have enough information to make a move like that?” he asked curiously. If she said yes, they would move without hesitation. After seeing how she operated, Kakashi had no problem following her lead.

 

“As of right now we have two unknowns. How is the Akatsuki connected to this group and how they’re aware of the caravans schedules. I believe those two are connected and I have no doubt whatever’s inside that box will give us the answer we need,” Sakura’s voice was sure and firm, the voice of a leader, and despite the intimacy of their position, it almost felt like they were briefing each other in a conference room. Only they were significantly more comfortable like this.

 

“You think the Akatsuki are offering up the intel on the caravans,” Kakashi said, impressed with her line of thinking. “What could a terrorist organisation want with a group of thieves, though?”

 

“That’s what we need to find out.” Sakura curled the fist on his chest tighter for a second before releasing some of her tension. She took a deep breath and released it slowly and with it she relaxed even more. As she let all of the tension in her muscles go, it almost started feeling like he was holding onto a pile of gooey, warm Sakura. She continued speaking with a significantly quieter voice. “I’ll tell you what I found in those files. The first one was Yukio’s—”

 

Kakashi listened to Sakura’s soft voice for over twenty minutes as she went over the files, completing the information there with what she had gathered by befriending people around camp. 

 

It was a strange thought to have that Kakashi had never felt more relaxed. Despite the almost hysterical freak out he had the night before, he felt comfortable holding Sakura like that. More importantly, he was in his element. With the rain still going on strong outside, Kakashi could completely narrow his focus to their tent alone and do what he did best. This was where Kakashi excelled, working a mission, using his brain and trying to solve their problem.

 

When Sakura was done, she pressed closer to him with a whispered, “Goodnight,” and fell asleep before he could even reply. Kakashi didn’t take long to follow her.

Notes:

SO. Our weekly rants are BACK. Brought to you by a very sleep deprived author who somehow managed to write 71k words from Jan 2-Jan 31.

You guys have no idea just how productive this break was omg and I owe it all to the wonderful peeps of the KakaSaku fandom but especially my beta, A. She's just fucking AWESOME and really helped me out with keeping productive and motivated when I wasn't getting my daily motivation dose from your comments. If you can, check out her KS fic "running out of reasons". I guarantee you won't regret it.

About the comments! I'm not sure if you guys didn't comment as much on this chapter as in others because you didn't like what happened (a lot of people didn't lol) or because you were waiting for me to go back to my schedule to even read it, I dunno. BUT. If y'all could let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate it! Writing all those chapters without getting feedback was S H I T T Y and I'm so so glad to be going back to posting every week! Fuck, you guys have no idea just how much you change my day with just a few words.

Anyway!! The mission is progressing further and things will come to a head soon!! For those of you who asked me about Naruto coming back, yes he will! But I stretched out the timeline, remember? And although we're pretty close to when he comes back in the timeline, the next few chapters of the fic will slow down significantly so it might take longer than some of you might want. We're basically done with the time skips for this part of the story.

Okay, I think this is all for now!!! Thank you so much again for everyone who commented, I really appreciate it even though my anxiety acts up and sometimes I can't reply... You can also reach me over on Tumblr! My username is justjstuff and if you guys give me a follow let me know you found me through DoF!!

Just a heads up to this wonderful fandom: We're planning a KakaSaku Month!!! The girls are still working things out but we're accepting some ideas and prompts if you have any! Head over to sleepyfoxfanworks and bouncyirwin on tumblr, they're our two mods and will soon make a post about the KakaSaku Month

See you next week :)

Chapter 36: Not a Good Day

Notes:

HELLO. Happy Fire Friday, all!!!!

After reading and properly squealing over your reviews last chapter I feel like I should start by saying... unfortunately, K isn't Konan or Kakuzu (lmao, guys I've been laughing my ass off this past week) y'all seem to think I'm much smarter than I actually am lmfao I love it. Thank you so much for reviewing, I really missed you guys!!! <3

Now, this chapter is a roller coaster of emotions and I'm super nervous to be posting this. I love the fight in this chapter and I wish I could do it justice. When you get to the end just remember to trust me, yeah? Since it ends on a cliffhanger, I'm just gonna throw it out there that I can be convinced to post the next one sooner.... you know what you have to do ;)

Sakura was stretched out on the floor of what they were considering to be their spot, against a tree a bit further away from the crew’s sparring ring. The sun was warm enough that day that she had forgone her hoodie and was enjoying the afternoon air around them. 

 

Kakashi and Asuma were chatting from either side of her and from time to time they would get up to spar with someone. Sakura pretended to nap in between healing whoever lost the fight and kept her senses alert to what was going on, cataloguing everyone’s conversation and who was going where. 

 

It was a Sunday and the window for them to find the key for the box before the next ‘mission’ was closing fast. She knew it was probably okay to wait for Friday to come to execute the plan but she absolutely wanted this mission to be over already. More importantly, it didn’t sit well with her being so close to the Akatsuki and not having anything on them. She wanted information. Sakura wanted the upper hand on those bastards and she wanted it now.

 

She was smoking a pilfered cigarette from Asuma, lounging next to him when some of the chatter quieted.

 

The sparring going on—Kakashi and Aya’s boyfriend Matsuo—didn’t stop but the chatter around camp seemed lower as Yuuto made his way across the clearing. Sakura thought for a moment that he had only gone to watch the fight but then he made eye contact with her and changed his course. Sakura forced a natural grin on her lips and waved slightly.

 

Something seemed off about him, he was almost dragging his feet through the grass, his eyes narrowed and shoulders tense. Yuuto looked like he was trying to hide how worried he was and was failing miserably, at least to Sakura’s trained eyes.

 

“Sorry to bother you on your free day, Akari-chan,” he greeted her when he was close enough. “Could you help me with something?” 

 

Sakura fought the urge to raise her eyebrows at how polite he sounded and just nodded with a small smile.

 

“Sure!” She got up and took a last drag of her cigarette before stubbing it on the bark of the tree she had been leaning against. 

 

“I’ll be in my tent.” Yuuto left without another word and Sakura’s heart sped up at his odd behaviour. What changed?

 

Sakura turned to share a concerned look with Asuma and he got up as well. The cigarette still hanging from his lips was gently releasing smoke in the air but he seemed to have completely forgotten about it.

 

“Do you want me to come with you?” Asuma took a step closer to her like he needed to protect her from some sort of attack right there in the open. It was equal parts sweet and annoying.

 

“Stay.” Sakura’s tone of voice was the same she used as a taichou but her features were still relaxed. Asuma furrowed his eyebrows but didn’t try to follow her when she headed back to camp. 

 

Sakura dropped the cigarette butt in the firepit as she rounded it to reach Yuuto’s tent, the flaps hanging open as usual. He was sitting in one of the chairs of the first room, sprawled on it like he was too heavy to stand up straight, one hand buried in his hair.

 

“Is everything okay, Yuuto-sama?” Akari asked sweetly, a concerned frown on her face.

 

“Just a headache, Akari-chan.” The man looked even more tired from this close. Sakura wondered yet again what had happened for him to suddenly look like this. “I think I’m beginning to catch a cold and with another job coming up I don’t want to risk anything.”  

 

“Of course,” Sakura said, her mind whirring, trying to decide how to get him completely alone. “A-ano, Yuuto-sama, it would be easier if I could heal you in a horizontal position. The procedure can make you dizzy and… I’m really not strong enough to keep you from falling,” Sakura finished with a conspiratorial whisper.

 

Yuuto grinned indulgently at her and got up from the chair.

 

“Sure, Akari-chan.” He waved with a hand for her to follow him. “Come on, I’ll lay on the bed if you promise your husband won’t mind.”

 

Sakura forced a blush to her cheeks and sputtered a coy response about Kato trusting her while Yuuto settled on his bed. She kneeled next to him, mostly because she knew he would appreciate the view and visibly hesitated before placing a careful hand on his forehead. 

 

“You don’t need to be scared, Akari-chan.” Yuuto shot her a quick look before closing his eyes. “Even if you weren’t married, I’ve already met my better-half. Ever wonder why I make it a point to visit the village every Friday?”

 

“I always thought you were taking care of business there…” Sakura said, not bothering to hide her surprise. The letters from K had been raunchy and sweet but didn’t hold a single bit of information about the two of them meeting up. It made sense that he would have a standing date with his lover at the nearby village. 

 

“You could say that, I suppose,” Yuuto snorted and Sakura fought a smile. Time to get to her own business.

 

“Just relax now, Yuuto-sama,” Sakura said, her voice quiet and sweet, lulling him into a false sense of security as her chakra entered his system. “I’ll be done before you know it!”

 

Within seconds Yuuto was in a chakra induced coma. Sakura allowed herself a private smile before quickly getting to her feet without making a sound. It was extremely unlikely that someone would enter the tent with the two of them there but Sakura had to act fast so the others wouldn’t be suspicious of them taking too long. 

 

She quickly patted him down trying to find a key hidden in his pockets but found nothing. Then she moved to open his shirt in search of a necklace but was disappointed yet again. Sakura was already getting frustrated as she tied his shirt back closed but was nowhere near giving up. This was the perfect opportunity and it had fallen right in her lap, she would see this through.

 

Her hands quickly moved to his wrists and there it was. The key dangled from a leather bracelet on his wrist, hidden beneath his long sleeved shirt. Sakura carefully checked it for traps even though she didn’t expect to find any and snatched it from his wrist. Completely silent, she made her way to his desk and opened his hidden compartment to fish the metal box out. 

 

The chakra in the key hissed slightly and the lock clicked open. 

 

Sakura felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. For a second her breath caught in her throat and she was worried her next breath would hurt because of how tight her chest felt. Inside the box were about twenty letters. All of it was coded but it was a Water code that Sakura had learned through Usui a few years back and it was easy to read it.

 

The crew was being supplied with the schedules for the caravans by the Akatsuki and most of their recruiting had been done at their request. The first letter seemed to be from a few months before and it was asking them to procure three more men so they could raid a caravan headed towards Wave with ten men. 

 

Some letters were only a few sentences long, asking for a meeting in one of the villages near them but Sakura could get the general idea of what was going on from them.

 

The Akatsuki were financing this group to rob places, offering information in return for a cut of their profits. It was a hefty cut at that and Sakura suddenly understood what they were missing. 

 

Because the Akatsuki’s objective with the jinchurikis seemed so nefarious and mysterious, they had let their common sense in the background and put the organisation on a pedestal, making them seem mystical and devoid of flaws. The fact was that just like any other group, they needed money and influence to operate successfully. She was just surprised that they had chosen this unknown crew, especially since they had been much smaller when they began their partnership.

 

Still, this was everything they needed to go forward. 

 

This confirmed the gang wasn’t tied to any specific country, and their operation was strictly based on small thefts around the area and robbing the caravans the Akatsuki asked them to. Sakura and her team could dismantle them while half of their camp was away on the next job on Wednesday and set a trap for when the others came back. They would even have the upper hand since, according to the last letter, the team would leave before sunup and most of the remaining ninja would probably still be asleep.

 

Sakura quickly fixed everything before going back to wake Yuuto up. She knew he’d still be groggy while she actually healed him but it would add to the lie she had fed him about making him dizzy.

 

“Akari-chan?” Yuuto slurred. 

 

“We’re almost done now, Yuuto-sama!” Sakura exclaimed sweetly but knew the high pitch of Akari’s voice would make his ears ring. She quickly finished up but kept her place kneeling next to him. “There we go! Good as new?”

 

“Good as new, Akari-chan,” Yuuto slurred while sitting up, his beady eyes glued to her. “You’re a miracle worker, Hatanaka is a lucky son of a bitch.”

 

Akari smiled bashfully and blushed while averting her eyes to the floor. Her hands wrung on her lap as she carefully bit her bottom lip.

 

“A-ano, Yuuto-sama.” She looked at him through her lashes before quickly averting her eyes to her hands. “I have a favour to ask…”

 

“What is it?” Yuuto’s voice was beginning to sound annoyed and Sakura quickly dialled back on the bashfulness. She raised her eyes to his and gave him her most disarming smile, making sure to show some sadness in her expression.

 

“It’s just that Kato and Asao’s teammate Yasahiro died five years ago and I was wondering if we could get the day off on Wednesday to pay our respects?” Sakura shrugged her shoulders a bit, still kneeling on the floor.

 

Yuuto frowned but didn’t outright deny so Sakura waited him out, making Akari seem nervous and repentant. It would be better if the three of them could focus their efforts on each half of the crew at once but if it came to it, Sakura knew she could take out the half that stayed. It probably wouldn’t be easy and smooth but she could get the job done.

 

“We have a job Wednesday, Akari-chan…” 

 

“Ah, I didn’t know that, Yuuto-sama! That’s okay!” She struggled to her feet and waved her hands anxiously. “I completely understand, I’m so sorry I bothered you, Yuuto-sama!”

 

Sakura made her cheeks redden and her eyes fill with tears and Yuuto sighed at the sight of her.

 

“I… I suppose paying respect to the dead is an important thing… I’m sure my ma would rip me a new one if she knew I didn’t take it seriously.” Yuuto scratched the back of his head and Sakura knew he was sold. Of course, she knew that about his mother from a letter his brother had sent him about one of their friend’s funeral in Water. She had bet this was the right button to push and it had paid out. 

 

She widened her eyes comically and bowed low twice.

 

“Thank you so much, Yuuto-sama!” She straightened up and shot him her most dazzling smile. “We’ll be sure to double our shifts the next day! Thank you, thank you!”

 

Sakura bowed her way out of his room and happily made her way back to the outskirts of the camp. Asuma was the one on the ring while Kakashi was half sitting half lying against their tree with both his legs straight in front of him, dark eye taking everything around him until they locked with hers. Sakura let a devious smile stretch on her lips for a millisecond but didn’t let it linger. She carefully reigned in the excited roll of her chakra and simply smiled cheerfully at him.

 

“Beautiful day, isn’t it, husband?” she asked him with a small giggle once she plopped down in front of him. 

 

She made sure to sit with her back to the camp so she was completely facing him. Kakashi raised one knee so she could lean back on it and Sakura relaxed against it, completely unable to fight a relieved sigh that turned into a delighted laugh. She mouthed happily, “ I got what we needed.”

 

Kakashi’s eyebrow twitching was the only indication he gave that he understood but then he adjusted their position so he could slide his face closer to hers. He pressed a kiss to her lips and breathed in slightly. Sakura couldn’t fight the urge to raise her hand to play with the hair on the nape of his neck.

 

“Tell me everything,” he whispered against her lips and the sound of his voice so low and so close made a small shiver run down her spine.

 

Sakura relayed every bit of information she had and the plan she had already started working on. She faked she was whispering sweet nothings into his ear, pressing gentle words to his lips and cheek and despite the few chats around the sparring ring she heard, no one bothered them. 

 

Kakashi looked behind her for a second and pressed another kiss to her lips before disentangling himself from her to get up. Asuma arrived then, his eyebrow raised as Kakashi went past him but his friend only clapped him on the back before moving to take his place on the sparring ring.

 

Sakura waited for Asuma to sit down before asking for a cigarette and brazenly laying her head on his leg so she could face the sky. This way it would be almost impossible for someone to read her lips from the distance and she could relay to him every part of their plan. It was unlikely that they would get another chance to talk before taking action.

 

Sakura went to sleep that day with her heart still beating strongly inside her chest. The first taste of adrenaline was finally making itself known and Sakura had to reign in her excitement since they were supposed to be approaching a sombre time for Kato and Asao but it was surprisingly hard for her to do so. 

 

She hated missions where they had to wait too much to act and this one had the particularly unknown variable that was the Akatsuki duo. It was finally coming to a headway, they would not only take out a band of rogues that was making trouble for their commerce and had killed a whole team of Konoha chunins but also take out one of the Akatsuki’s way of making money.

 

When Tuesday night came, Sakura had to force herself to sleep for at least six hours. She didn’t even pretend it was the cold that made her press closer to Kakashi. Her hand found his wrist and while she didn’t wrap herself in his warmth, his scent was all around her lulling her to sleep.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura woke up at exactly six o’clock, knowing that the sun would take much longer than usual to rise this close to winter. They had already packed their things the night before and the half of the crew was leaving just as the two of them got up. They waited half an hour, monitoring the chakra signatures of the group while they ate ration bars and drank sparingly from their water bottles. 

 

Sakura unsealed her weapons from a hidden scroll in her pack and put her still dark red hair into her usual braid, preparing for the fight ahead. She shared one nod with Kakashi before they left their tent.

 

Sakura quickly covered herself with her genjutsu and matched her chakra to a beetle flying next to the fire pit. She moved silently through the camp, entering what tents she could and putting the people in them into chakra induced comas. They would request a caravan from the prison to come pick everyone up when it was over and it was better to not engage as many as they could.

 

Kakashi and Asuma would go deal with the sentinels and Sakura only had to evade the guards on the ground while trying to incapacitate as many rogues as she could.

 

Kaede and Hotaka had followed the other half of the crew to their job while Kimi and the twins hid in the outskirts of their camp to serve as backup for when the other half of the group arrived so they could spring their trap on them. The rest of her pack was with Team Ro spread out around the woods between their camp and the caravan undetected, keeping an eye on the situation.

 

Sakura had just put Matsuo, Aya’s boyfriend, out when she heard a commotion outside. Someone had sounded an alarm. 

 

Sakura sprinted outside to get a feel of the situation and was relieved that it was still only the people on their half that were milling around, trying to combat a still unknown enemy to them. Since Kakashi and Asuma had stayed behind, Yuuto had taken all of the jounin in the camp with him and the only obstacle that could possibly make things hard for them were a few high level chunin. 

 

Sakura dropped her genjutsu but kept her chakra levels halfway hidden as she moved through the chaos to find Kakashi and Asuma on the sparring ring, fighting back to back. They were surrounded but in no way worried and Sakura picked her way through the few rogues between them. 

 

The rogues were aiming to kill but Sakura moved easily through them, smacking the butt of her tantou to their temples to knock them out as she went. It was easy for her to take them out like that but some of them… some of them hesitated in attacking her. 

 

She had gotten to know them and had been on a first name basis with many and while she didn’t exactly feel remorse—she wasn’t killing them and she had her duty to her village—Sakura did feel pity for them. In the end, she felt a pang in her chest when she realised she would have to fight Yukio and Aya, probably to the point that they were either incapacitated or dead. 

 

While these rogues were chunin at best and could be easily dealt with without much hassle, a battle with a jounin always escalated even if they weren’t particularly skilled like Sakura’s team. 

 

Sakura’s thoughts wandered as they fought, and she was struck with the sudden realisation that her shishou and Shizune were right. If she had gotten this attached to their targets in a short mission, she could only imagine how Itachi felt. Sure, she would easily kill any of them if asked by her Hokage but she had spent about three weeks with them. Itachi had spent close to ten years. 

 

She wondered what kind of bonds he had created with the people around him even if they were S-Ranked criminals. 

 

They were almost done, only two chunin left standing when Sakura’s whole body froze. Kimi’s howl sounded in the distance where she had kept formation with the twins. It was a warning and it was one only used when extreme danger was nearby. 

 

“Kakashi!” Sakura tried to warn him while she ducked beneath the strike of one of the last chunin’s kunai. She quickly spun on her feet to knock him out with her tantou. 

 

Sakura tried to get more words out but by then she had already felt them. 

 

Two chakra signatures, ridiculously strong and moving towards them too fast to intercede. Asuma’s kunai was stopped by a macabre scythe.   

 

The last chunin ran away and no one moved to stop him. Across from the makeshift sparring ring stood two figures cloaked in black and red. One of them had his cloak slightly opened at the front, showing off his chest and a necklace with a symbol Sakura had never seen before. His hair was silver and slicked back, his eyes holding an insane amount of bloodlust that made Sakura’s killing intent instinctively respond. He was holding the long range scythe that had blocked Asuma’s attack and his head snapped towards her when her killing intent reacted.

 

The other was standing a few meters behind, his whole head covered showing only his eyes and… he was holding Yukio’s body.

 

Sakura was disconcerted by the pang that went through her chest. Despite knowing all along that she was working on a mission that would take Yukio to jail, seeing his mutilated dead body still made her stomach churn. He had been sweet and even caring and he was the first one to open up to her. She had meals with him, worked shifts and even gotten drunk. He looked to have suffered a horrible death.

 

Sakura fought a shudder when she realised that he and Kenji—his partner and love of his life, as Yukio had confided in her—had probably watched the other die. 

 

“Who are you?” Kakashi asked, his voice taking that dangerous tone that Sakura had in her early years only been able to associate with Zabuza but now knew fit the persona he had created for Hound-taichou. 

 

The one on the left pulled the scythe back and laughed a deranged kind of laugh that made Sakura’s upper lip pull back into a snarl. Kakashi and Asuma closed ranks from either side of her, stepping slightly in front of her so that their enemy’s gaze would focus on them instead of her. 

 

It did quite the opposite. The silver haired man on the left smirked and locked eyes with Sakura before laughing again.

 

“Oho~!” He licked his lips. “Which one of you two idiots is fucking Red? Well, it doesn’t matter. You’ll all be sacrifices soon enough. Jashin-sama wasn’t nearly satisfied with the others.”

 

Sakura snarled at the man, her hand tightening on her tantou. For a second she was lost in a haze of bloodlust that almost left her dizzy. She wanted to kill him. Not only because of his clear affiliation to the Akatsuki or because he was their opponent but because she felt he deserved it. She would rip him limb from limb and watch as his body bled dry. She would tear away at his flesh until— 

 

Focus, Inner snapped. Something feels wrong. Who the fuck is Jashin-sama? What does he mean by sacrifices? Focus on what’s important, don’t let yourself get baited. Hatake and Sarutobi are already too emotional for this fight, stepping in front of you like you’re a damsel in distress like that, you have to keep a clear head. 

 

Sakura took a deep breath and accepted the cloak and mask Inner offered her. She was right. Sakura had to get her brain back into action and focus on what was important.

 

First, she catalogued what she had gathered from them so far. Mouthy Psychopath was a long range fighter given his weapon, he was overconfident and seemed deranged. Pink Eyes was quiet and there were only a few reasons he would be holding Yukio’s body like that. He was probably going to exchange it for money in the black market and if that was the case they were there to get the crates from Yuuto’s tent where all the valuables were hidden.

 

Sakura didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet but she could guess that the Akatsuki had betrayed Yuuto somehow. They needed money for their organisation and the cut they took from Yuuto’s operation was big, sure, but it was much better to have him do all the hard work and then swoop in for the kill. 

 

They were vultures.

 

“Hidan, don’t take too long with these three. We still have to go all the way to the Collection Office,” the one on the right said, his voice scratchy and deep, the kind of detachment on it only a certain type of shinobi could manage. “I’m going to go ahead and collect Yuuto’s bounty.”

 

“Ehh, don’t tell me what to do! You had me rush the last ritual, I’ll take my time with this one!” As the two bickered, Sakura sent a silent signal to Kimi and the twins. They had stayed hidden so far and Sakura wanted them to hold their position for the moment. Until they had figured out what they were dealing with it was best not to show their cards and since Kaede hadn’t made contact yet, Sakura could only assume he was still on his way. Hidan muttered under his breath, “Money-loving fucker.”

 

This was good news. They seemed to be underestimating them so far. This was something Sakura could work with. That is, until Pink Eyes moved to go past them and Kakashi leaned forward.

 

“You’re not going anywhere.” Kakashi had his katana drawn, his chakra moving dangerously like a storm waiting to be unleashed. Sakura could see the exact moment they began to be taken seriously and her half formulated plan to play to the fact they were being underestimated went to shit.

 

“Your chakra level… You’re not a nobody like the others,” Pink Eyes said, his gaze locked firmly on Kakashi.

 

“Oi, Kakuzu!” Hidan yelled. “They’re going to be sacrifices for Jashin-sama, you already stole one of my offerings! Go and get your money.”

 

“You feel strong but I don’t remember seeing your description in any Bingo Book,” Kakuzu continued talking at Kakashi, completely ignoring his partner. “Unless…”

 

“Enough fucking talking already,” Hidan yelled as he prepared to attack. Sakura’s whole body tensed in response but she kept still and waited to see how things would unfold. “Go get your money and leave me to my sacrifices, Kakuzu! Don’t you fucking dare interfere!”

 

Hidan took a few steps before launching his scythe at them. He was fast and Sakura had no doubt that what had happened with the other half of the camp had been quick and easy for the two of them. If Kakuzu didn’t figure out their identities, they stood a chance of battling Hidan together before moving on to the other. However, Kakashi wouldn’t be able to use the Sharingan. 

 

Could they afford that?

 

Sakura didn’t know and she didn’t have any more time to wonder at that because Hidan had begun a series of consecutive attacks with his scythe that made them disperse. The scythe left craters on the forest floor which meant Hidan was strong but he wasn’t as fast as Sakura or Kakashi. Asuma seemed to be holding up well so far with only kunai instead of his chosen weapon but Sakura knew if it came down to it, he would probably be the one to suffer more in this fight.

 

Sakura threw a few senbon towards Hidan, barely distracting him as he sent his scythe on attack after attack. At first he seemed to be aiming completely towards Kakashi who had shown himself to be the more powerful but when Sakura and Asuma started attacking him together, he had seemed to reevaluate the situation. 

 

Sakura kept her distance this early into the fight but managed to distract him with a few shuriken hidden in genjutsu enough that Asuma’s barrage of kunai managed to cut him on his ear. 

 

They were all so worried about engaging Hidan, safe in their assumptions that Kakuzu had heeded his partner’s warnings that when his attack came, they were caught off guard. Thick wire-like… tentacle spears came out of Kakuzu’s sleeves and reached for Kakashi with enough speed that he could only dodge at the last second.

 

The wires scratched at his temple, cutting the string of his eyepatch and drawing blood. Hidan stopped his attacks and while it went against what she wanted to do, Sakura didn’t press forward into offence. 

 

“What the fuck, Kakuzu, I said get the fuck away—” Hidan began yelling but Kakuzu cut him off.

 

“Shut up, you fool.” 

 

Sakura turned slightly to see the thin line of blood stretching vertically on Kakashi’s temple. She checked the wound for any signs of poison but didn’t find any from afar. His eye was closed, hiding the Sharingan, but if their enemy had gone straight for the eyepatch… He already suspected Kakashi’s identity.

 

“These three were fighting the rest of the crew. I bet you were… infiltrated here.” Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed at each of them and the shinobi knocked out behind them. Sakura held her breath. “I imagine either Konoha or Kiri sent you to take care of them. Now the eyepatch… Your physical attributes don’t match anyone on the Bingo Book but your scar…”

 

Shit , Sakura thought. He was going to figure him out. And when he did, Kakashi would become his main target. His bounty was ridiculous . There’s no way the Akatsuki wouldn’t try to go for it. Even if Asuma managed to keep his identity hidden, Sakura and Kakashi had no choice but to use their full arsenal to their disposal and sooner or later Kakuzu would figure out that together they were worth more than a couple hundred millions.

 

Sakura was about to attack, smash her fist to the ground to try and catch her enemies off guard when she heard him.

 

“ Sakura-hime!” it was Kaede, hidden in the trees but sounding breathless even through their mind connection. He had probably raced all the way back. “ You have to be careful! This man, Hidan, worships Jashin, the fallen god. His abilities far exceed what shinobi will consider possible. He’s immortal .”

 

Sakura’s eyes widened minutely at Kaede’s interference. His voice was full of disgust but beneath that… fear. Sakura kept herself from reacting any further and stayed absolutely still while the others did the appropriate amount of trash talk. She told Kaede to keep going.

 

“ Kakuzu will figure out that you all have a bounty on your head soon. He’s close to figuring Kakashi out and then he won’t stay away from the fight. That’s exactly what happened back with the other half of the camp. Sakura-hime, it was a massacre .” Kaede’s voice was anxious inside her head and Sakura tightened her hand on her tantou in response, her stomach rolling with dread.

 

Sakura jumped away from Hidan’s next attack at the same time Kakuzu went for Kakashi. There wasn’t much time to react anymore and her body moved in autopilot as she dodged the scythe while trying to keep Kakashi and Kakuzu in her line of sight. She sent two kunai with exploding tags hidden with genjutsu on the shadow of another set of kunai towards Hidan and grabbed Asuma by the back of his shirt to jump back. 

 

She had modified those exploding tags herself and the power behind it was considerably greater than usual. 

 

She looked at Kakashi just enough to see he was keeping the fight with Kakuzu from escalating so he wouldn’t need to use the Sharingan but it was no use. If they were getting out of there alive, they would have to go all out. 

 

“Tch.” Hidan spat blood on the ground and impossibly came out from the smoke the explosion had created. He was holding his severed arm with the other hand, the rest of him sooty and bloody in some parts but otherwise he was fine. If he was immortal, then it shouldn’t have been enough to get him but the sight of him was still gruesome. “The bitch took my arm. Oi, Kakuzu! A little help?”

 

“Didn’t you say not to interfere?” Kakuzu said while dodging several of Kakashi’s strikes effortlessly. “Make up your mind.” 

 

Sakura used her opponent's distraction to contact Kaede again. 

 

“ Kaede, you need to tell me everything you know about them and fast . ” 

 

She watched as Hidan and Kakuzu bickered while the latter engaged Kakashi. It was only a matter of time before Kakashi had to use the Sharingan. Hidan was doing something with his feet while Kakuzu sent a string to sew his arm back into place and, impossibly, his arm was functioning yet again. 

 

“ He’s drawing a circle on the ground with his own blood, it’s the start of the ritual. Konoha shinobi don’t worship the original gods and goddesses but we wolves remember. Jashin was the god of pain and suffering, he was revered until he fell from glory. This Hidan asshole worships him and as long as he performs his rituals and follows Jashin’s rules, he is impossible to kill .” Kaede’s voice was a constant in the back of her head as she tried to engage both Hidan and Kakuzu at the same time, providing back up for both Kakashi and Asuma. She didn’t want to leave either of them to deal with their enemy by themselves but the way things were progressing she would have to choose one… and Asuma would need the most help.

 

Sakura changed her direction mid jump to avoid being hit by Hidan’s scythe and interceded one of Kakuzu’s hands with her tantou before it got to Kakashi. 

 

“ For the ritual to be complete, he will have to drink someone’s blood and stand within the confines of his sacred circle. Sakura-hime, once it’s complete, the person whose blood he assimilated into his system will receive all of his— ”

 

Kaede’s voice was drowned out by the sound of an explosion. Asuma had used an A-ranked jutsu to cover their enemy in a dark fog that turned out to be explosive. The blast rocked the forest as Sakura and her teammates jumped back to avoid it. 

 

Their feet hadn’t even touched the ground before Kakuzu’s strings were coming at them. They were faster than before and Sakura knew Kakashi would break his cover before his chakra even fluctuated with the use of his Sharingan. 

 

“ Sakura-hime you have to understand! If he assimilates your blood into his system, all attacks he suffers will go to you as well! ” Kaede was yelling frantically inside her head but thankfully her wolves were following her orders of staying back. “ Do you understand me? If he cuts off his arm, your arm will fall without him even needing to cut you! ”

 

Sakura gasped, unable to comprehend that such a jutsu was possible. But then… Kaede hadn’t said this was a jutsu. It was the worship of gods, something so foreign to her that her first instinct was to deny it. However, there was no bond as strong as hers and her pack. If Kaede was saying that, then it meant it was the truth and they had to act accordingly.

 

Sakura pulled back from the battlefield mentally, registering in the back of her mind that Kakuzu and Hidan were arguing and that Kakashi’s identity had been revealed. On one hand, she could alert her team of what she had found out and have them avoid getting hit at all costs, on the other hand…

 

She would lose the element of surprise. Her enemy’s abilities were so obscure she was sure part of his strategy relied on his victims not knowing what was happening before it was too late. If she shouted out his secret now, she would lose the giant edge she had just earned. 

 

Sakura made a split second decision and hoped it was the right one.

 

She dropped her henge, letting her hair take its natural colour and drawing Kakuzu’s attention to her. She had to trust that Asuma would be able to hold his own for a while because they didn’t stand a chance fighting two of them at the same time. She needed to get Kakashi away from them and focus his attacks on Kakuzu while she and Asuma dealt with Hidan. It was the only way she saw the three of them surviving.

 

“There’s only one kunoichi from Konoha with pink hair.” Kakuzu nodded to himself. “You have to be—”

 

Sakura drew attention to herself as she jumped up high.

 

“Shannaro!” Her fist smashed into the ground between Hidan and Kakuzu forcing them to spring apart. In the second it took for them to jump, she turned towards Kakashi and caught his eyes.

 

She sent a volley of shuriken towards Kakuzu weaving genjutsu over genjutsu so he wouldn’t be able to tell which ones were fake or not, and pressing him towards the treeline.

 

“Kakashi, you need to go,” Sakura yelled over the sounds of Hidan and Asuma fighting behind her. “Kimi and Hotaka will be going with you but you need to engage him on your own.”

 

“Sakura—” Kakashi started to say and she knew he would protest her staying behind but she didn’t let him finish.

 

“Go!” she yelled, begging him with her eyes to follow her plan. “And don’t you dare fucking die. Kaede says this guy is more powerful than it looks.”

 

Sakura didn’t wait for him to answer, her chest constricting painfully at having to leave him alone fighting an enemy that seemed to be powerful enough to take them all out. In the end, she trusted his abilities and she was truly the only one who could successfully fight Hidan.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Kakashi panted, the drain of the Sharingan making him familiarly dizzy for a second before he managed to control himself again. Kimi and Hotaka had followed behind him as he fought Kakuzu and had stayed by his side when he ran one of his hearts through with the Chidori. Now, a bit longer into the fight, they were actively engaging the enemy, buying him some time to catch his breath while they attacked with their combination of fire and lightning chakra natures. 

 

There had been little reason in the past years for Kakashi to exert himself as much as this. The last few times he had come this close to thinking he would die had been with Zabuza and then with Itachi. 

 

While the missions he had taken in the last four years had been taxing in their frequency and difficulty, it was nothing close to this. Kakashi was glad to say he had more control of his body now than he had during those two fights and was holding far better against the leech that the Sharingan was, but he had the uncomfortable realisation that this enemy might just be the one to take him out.

 

If he had encountered Kakuzu on the battlefield six or even five years ago, he would without a shadow of a doubt have died to make sure his enemy was no longer a threat. After his father’s death, Obito and Rin, and after his sensei Kakashi had only wanted to die an honourable death. For a shinobi, that meant succumbing in the battlefield, finishing a mission with little regard to his own well being.

 

Now Kakashi had much more to think about than his own well being.

 

The need to go all out and completely obliterate the monstrosity that was Kakuzu was there and for a second the sheer bloodlust of it made Kakashi take a staggering breath through his mask. But it was quickly overwhelmed by the need to come back to his friends, to make sure they were alive and okay. 

 

Kakashi wasn’t the man he had been those years ago and now, while eliminating the threat that was Kakuzu was important, being alive to make sure his team was okay was more important. If Kakuzu had been the only threat then he would have thrown himself without thought into a fight but as it stood, Kakashi had to also think about Hidan back there with his loved ones. 

 

He took a steadying breath, formed the necessary signs and disappeared into the ground as his clone burst forth. 

 

His clone engaged the fire creature while Hotaka fought against the wind wielding monster and Kimi tried to distract the suiton user. None of them were well matched against their opponents, if they were to win this as quickly as possible they had to at least try to play to their chakra affinities. Kimi’s being fire, she would be well suited to fight the wind type but Kakashi had already killed the Earth user and Hotaka’s lightning affinity was more of a liability against the wind-type than anything.

 

Kakashi’s clone was using every suiton technique he had pilfered from his enemies and friends alike throughout the years and was still just barely scraping by. The good thing was that since the wolves had arrived, Kakuzu had seemed to play things more carefully, taking his time before truly attacking. It was for that reason that Kakashi was caught off guard when Kakuzu brought wind and fire together to create a fiery explosion that his clone’s water jutsu couldn’t hold off.

 

Kimi and Hotaka both pulled back and Kakashi was glad they had moved closer to where he had hidden beneath the earth.

 

“Raiju!” Hotaka growled and from his open jaws the giant wolf made of lightning burst forth. Kakashi had seen the technique just a few times before when he was a child and it was still impressive even when he could only feel it by chakra from beneath the earth. 

 

The Raiju attacked Kakuzu himself while Kimi used her Onibi no Okami to separate the fire and wind creatures. Kakashi was getting ready to disappear behind the wind user to finish it with a Raikiri when he noticed the high amount of chakra being charged by the lightning user. 

 

He knew that the attack coming would be devastating and that neither Hotaka nor Kimi would be able to dodge in time, not preoccupied with their own fight as they were. Kakashi burst from the ground without a second thought. Sure, he would be breaking his cover but it was useless if the wolves died while he stayed hidden, especially since his clone had already been obliterated. 

 

Kakashi rushed forward, his hands already cackling with a lightning nature transformation. He had cut a lightning bolt in half once, a long time ago, and while the mechanics behind it was the same, absorbing this amount of lightning was on a whole other level.

 

He stood with his hands raised in front of him, his feet planted and endured. 

 

The gloves he had worn as Kato disintegrated by the sheer power behind the attack, the outer vest going much in the same way. Little zaps licked at his naked forearms, raising the hair there as he tried to absorb all of the chakra aimed at him. It entered his system like a tidal wave, too strong to hold back or control and the sheer immensity of it threatened to overwhelm him.

 

Still, Kakashi stood firm.

 

When it was done, he stood still, the churning energy inside of him making his blood sing. It felt exhilarating if exhausting to have that much inside of him, the energy discharge rattled his bones and dizzyingly coursed through his veins. It unbalanced him as much as it made him feel strangely alive. 

 

Kimi and Hotaka closed ranks from either side of him and he pushed forward before his enemy had a chance to open his mouth and drag the fight out by talking. He was in no mood to play into this bastard’s ego.

 

He fought with the wolves for a while, the lightning still running through his pathways, before he felt Team Ro approaching. 

 

“It’s over,” he called across the clearing, making his opponent stop briefly. “Soon you’ll be outnumbered by the best team Konoha has to offer and your partner will be dead.”

 

“No one can kill Hidan,” Kakuzu said, sounding sure of it even as his eyes roved over the clearing and zeroed in the direction Team Ro was coming from. They had moved closer to Sakura and Asuma’s fight during their own skirmish and they could even hear elevated voices and the sounds of steel on steel. “If I could kill him, I would have a long time ago.”

 

That troubled Kakashi, though he didn’t show it. If Kakuzu, a literal monster that had fought the Shodaime himself said that about Hidan, then Kakashi didn’t want to know what kind of horror his friends were going up against. Still, he cocked his head to the side.

 

“Eh? I take it you haven’t met Sakura-chan, then. That girl is craftier than you’d expect.” Kakashi tried to make himself stall the conversation, even as every fibre of his being sung for him to run towards the other fight. “Asuma’s no pushover either. I’m completely sure they have it handled.”

 

He wasn’t. While he did trust their abilities and the fact that they would always have his back, this Akatsuki pair was unlike anything they had ever encountered before and Kakashi didn’t particularly want to test his teammates’ capabilities at the moment. 

 

Good thing he didn’t have to. In the next second, Team Ro and his pack had Kakuzu surrounded. They fought a brief but intense battle until Kakuzu broke away from between them. With one more combo move from the Fire and Wind creature, Team Ro fell back while Kakuzu ran, lightning and water protecting his retreating back. 

 

No one from Team Ro moved to follow, but Tenzou instructed a wood clone to follow him unseen and that would have to be enough because at the next second, Sakura’s scream echoed through the woods.

 

Kakashi was moving before he even realised, leading his team towards Sakura and Asuma, and almost stumbling on his feet at the sight that met him.

 

“Sakura!”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura watched in horror as the scythe came for them and instead of dodging, Asuma stepped in front of her. He made a half-ram with his left hand and placed his right one parallel to the ground and then he spoke in an eerily calm voice.

 

“ Raigou: Senjusatsu.”

 

Instead of hitting them, the scythe seemed to hit a giant translucent palm and ricocheted back towards Hidan. Asuma pressed forward with his attack, the almost spirit-like palms striking at Hidan like the Gentle Fist from the Hyuga. The force of it was enough to drive their enemy back and Sakura followed him.

 

She weaved the same genjutsu Chika had done on her during her first training with the pack, the one to make sure her opponent would see the world around him just a few centimetres to the left, and attacked. Sakura moved through her arsenal of skills quickly and leaving no room for the man to retaliate, all the while becoming increasingly aware that she sorely lacked any effective mid to long-range jutsu. That would definitely be a priority in her training when she got back. 

 

Hidan was slower than her but the sheer strength in his hits and the fact that he was taking almost all of the brunt of her attacks without even flinching made them tie fairly even in the short but intense fight. 

 

Sakura felt Asuma moving into place next to her, the two of them now standing closer to Hidan to nullify the range he had with his scythe. It seemed like a good idea at the time, bringing the fight closer to him and taking the advantage he had away but it backfired tremendously.

 

It only took one wrong move, one slightly delayed response from their distraction by the explosion that had come from Kakashi’s fight. In the blink of an eye, they had lost their upper hand.

 

Hidan’s maniacal laugh echoed through the forest.

 

“Finally! The ritual is complete.” Hidan’s voice was shrill and pleased and it sent a shiver down Sakura’s spine. 

 

Asuma had a cut on his shoulder. 

 

It was deep and not life threatening but… there was blood on Hidan’s mouth and that could only mean one thing.

 

“ Sakura-hime, the rest of the pack are on their way with Team Ro, you only have to hold off until they get here !” Kaede’s voice echoed in her head.

 

For the first time since the fight began, Sakura answered Kaede even as she and Asuma worked together to evade Hidan’s scythe. 

 

“ Kaede, listen to me very carefully. When they get here you need to send them Kakashi’s way. I’ll deal with this one, don’t you worry .”

 

“I want to feel your pain!” Hidan yelled, grabbing Sakura’s attention instantly and making her realise she had made a mistake in not giving the fight her full attention.

 

He unfolded a metal spear and Sakura thought he would use it to throw at them along the scythe but instead… instead, he pierced his thigh with it.

 

It took every ounce of her being and Inner’s help for Sakura not to react. She forced her body to delay the reaction for when Asuma fell to the ground next to her and used Inner to bring tears to her eyes. She would rip him to shreds .

 

“Asuma!” her voice sounded shrill to her own ears and for a second all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears. He hadn’t hit anything vital but it would greatly impact his ability to fight to his full potential, adding to that the fact that while Sakura was fully capable of dealing with their enemy she couldn’t use any of her favoured skills to attack him while he was connected to Asuma...

 

What if she had made the wrong decision? Either way, Asuma would have already been dodging Hidan’s hits but now that he was on the ground bleeding, her self-doubt was starting to catch up to her. She couldn’t let him get hurt. He was her teammate, she had to protect him. If she couldn’t keep her teammates safe, what was the point in all of her past four years of training? 

 

Sakura kneeled next to Asuma and immediately began to heal his leg. She knew it was against the iryo-nin code but she had to appear weak and useless and she could get her friend into fighting shape again as a bonus. 

 

“ The rest of the pack is here, Sakura-hime. Team Ro is less than five minutes out. Pakkun’s leading them .” Kaede sounded tense but Sakura could hear the note of relief in his voice.

 

She had healed most of Asuma’s injury, using an insignificant amount of chakra to do so. Hidan had been monologuing in the background but she tunned him out as she tried to think of the best case and the worst case scenario and all the possibilities between them. 

 

Once she established them, she started devising a plan.

 

It was a good one, where Asuma wouldn’t be hurt anymore, really all she had to do was get Hidan out of his circle. However, before she could even finish her thought, Hidan was pulling his scythe back. 

 

Sakura hadn’t realised in her distraction that the scythe had been carved on the floor a few meters behind them. She had barely enough time to push Asuma to the ground before it sailed past their heads and it was only then that she realised her mistake.

 

The sound of steel piercing flesh was one that had haunted her dreams for years but right then it sounded particularly loud in her ears.

 

Asuma choked on blood as Hidan laughed, all three points of his scythe embedded in vital points on his torso. 

 

Sakura’s vision tunnelled. 

 

There was the sound of explosions in the distance and of a fight approaching them from the direction Kakashi had gone into. There was Kaede’s voice yelling something inside her head and the beginnings of what looked to be heavy rain falling down on them.

 

Sakura didn’t hear or feel anything other than the sound of Asuma going limp as he choked on his own blood.

 

Inner unleashed a string of nightmarish sounds and images so fast and with such intensity that Sakura couldn’t breathe for the next second. Her killing intent had never been that strong, it permeated every free space in the forest around them and she reached with it towards Hidan and squeezed. 

 

He stopped mid laugh and fixated wide eyes on her but it didn’t last for long before Sakura reigned it in, afraid she’d hurt Asuma even more. 

 

“Eh~” Hidan laughed, “That killing intent!! Such an amazing feeling. I’ve never met anyone with such a strong one before. I’ll enjoy breaking you, hot stuff. This one is done for. Jashin-sama, I send this offering to you.”

 

Hidan hadn’t even bothered taking the scythe off himself and Sakura hoped that would keep Asuma from bleeding out too much. Whatever types of wishful thinking she had with that last thought went out the window when she saw he had taken the spear again.

 

Sakura snarled.

 

Her body moved faster than she thought she was able to. Her chakra gathered on her muscles and enhanced them, working with the very air around her and the earth on her feet to impulse her forward. 

 

She didn’t have much of a plan in her head anymore, she was working instead on pure instinct. Habit made it so that she didn’t need to do any type of calculation to accomplish exactly what she wanted. Sakura angled her body, gathered almost all of her chakra where it was needed and moved. 

 

Hidan’s spear pierced her back, ripping through her insides before it came out through her chest to scratch his.

 

Sakura’s vision blackened for a moment and she lost all ability to speak or even breathe. Despite the amount of chakra she had circulated in the place, her chest hurt like fuck and the pain was too overwhelming for a few seconds. She recognised distantly that someone was screaming her name but it sounded so far away, she couldn’t even tell if it was real or if she’d been dreaming.

 

In the next second, something snapped. 

 

Sakura didn’t know how to describe what she was feeling, she had never felt like that in her whole life. The centre of her forehead seemed to be leaking warmth down her face and neck and spreading all the way down throughout her body. Energy and chakra churned inside her and it took a few breaths for her to realise that she was Sakura, she was actually alive and…

 

She had awakened her seal.

 

Sakura laughed even as blood poured out of her lips, splattering Hidan’s face where he stood just a few centimetres away from her. With steadied hands, she gripped both of Hidan’s arms so he wouldn’t be able to move from the macabre version of an embrace they were mocking and cracked her right heel on the forest ground. The ceremonial seal broke but just to be sure Sakura propelled them backwards and completely out of the circle.

 

“What the fuck?” Hidan yelled in her ear.

 

Sakura snarled at him, used the extra chakra burning in her centre to take the spear out of her, even with the awkward angle, and chucked it aside. The wound on her chest was rapidly closing but she could feel it had left a drain on her chakra.

 

No matter, she thought, this will only take a second more. 

 

“You’re a fucking monster , hot—” Hidan tried to put more space between them but Sakura was faster. She grabbed him by the scythe still buried in his torso and pulled. 

 

It ripped out of him with a squelch and Sakura used his disbelief to push forward. 

 

“Now!” Sakura barked.

 

As one, four shadows jumped from the treeline, each one of them attaching to one of Hidan’s limbs; the twins holding each leg, Kaede and a Yukari on each arm. He had nowhere to run.

 

Sakura bared her teeth at him and enjoyed the look of genuine fear that came over his eyes. 

 

I’m going to rip you to shreds, she promised, her killing intent paralysing him further. She was the apex predator that day, and her prey had fallen into her trap. 

 

She heard some people behind her but paid them no mind as Tamotsu approached Hidan from behind. He was frantically trying to get away, moving his head from side to side and trying to throw his weight against the wolves. Although his muscles tore, it wasn’t enough for him to be able to escape the confines of her wolves’ jaws.

 

“Jashin-sama is a forgotten fool, Hidan. Sengen-sama will take you as an offering today,” Sakura said just before Tamotsu closed his jaws over the man. 

 

First on his head where he chewed once, then on his torso and arms once Kaede and Yukari let go. Sakura breathed heavily and let her head fall.

 

The chakra that had consumed her system was retreating into the newly formed seal on the tenketsu of her forehead. It wasn’t something she’d been expecting, the absolutely drained feeling when the sealing properly formed but Sakura forced herself to push through.

 

She turned to see her team was all there, standing around Asuma. Sakura dropped to her knees beside him.

 

Keiichi had been pressing chakra coated hands to Asuma’s abdomen but Sakura could tell it wasn’t enough. She replaced his hands with her own. Her chakra had greatly receded into her seal and with it her energy but she pretended it wasn’t happening.

 

She had no idea creating the seal officially would make her so drained. 

 

The rain continued to pelt heavily around them and Sakura didn’t even bother to pretend her face was wet from it alone. It took her a few seconds of working on him for her to realise she’d been speaking. Babbling, really.

 

“You’re going to be okay, don’t worry, I got you, it’s okay now, try not to talk,” Sakura sobbed and she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. Genma. “You just have to hold on a little bit longer, okay? I’m here, it’s o-okay.”

 

Asuma’s insides were a mess. Sakura knew she could fix him on a good day, although he had been hit in three vital points plus his shoulder, Keiichi had taken over first aid quickly enough that he hadn’t bled as much as expected. She could easily save his life on a good day.

 

It wasn’t a good day.

 

“Sakura…” Asuma coughed up blood and although him speaking made Sakura shut the fuck up, she had to choke down a sob. “Even I know…. Even I know this is it.”

 

Sakura had been feeling progressively fainter in the past few minutes—ten, if she had to guess—but his words brought something alive inside of her. Hot anger coursed through her bloodstream, sending a jolt through her system.

 

“Are you fucking giving up on me, Sarutobi?” Sakura snarled and Genma’s startled intake of breath almost made her want to punch him. 

 

“I just want—I just want one last cigarette,” Asuma rasped and Sakura’s anger vamped up as she doubled the amount of chakra she’d been pouring into him. 

 

The silence around the clearing would be deafening if it wasn’t for the rain. Sakura saw Genma leave his place behind her and reach for Asuma’s cigarette and lighter while she and Keiichi continued to work on him. Kakashi took his place behind her but didn’t reach out to touch her.

 

Genma lit the cigarette up and put it to Asuma’s lips with a quiet, “Here you go, old friend.”

 

Sakura couldn’t see. Her vision was too obscured with her tears and the rain but it didn’t matter, she didn’t need to see to perform iryo-ninjutsu. She took several shuddering breaths and tried to blink the tears away until she realised she couldn’t see because there were black spots in her vision.

 

“Sakura…” Kakashi said from behind her, his voice utterly devastated and hollow at the same time. “I… He’s gone.”

 

Sakura immediately stopped pumping chakra into him and ripped his shirt open with a chakra scalpel to press her ear to his heart. She waited one breath, two breaths and nothing. There was no more time for crying. She sat back on her heels and only then Kakashi reached for her but she shrugged his hand away. 

 

“Keiichi! Start chest compressions. Give him four blood pills and push whatever chakra you have left into his heart.” Sakura shrugged off someone’s hands—she wasn’t sure if it was Kakashi or Genma or both of them—and folded forward to reach her hands directly into Asuma’s torso.

 

She was too dizzy to give any more orders, only hoped that Keiichi would remember his training and come through as the amazing field doctor she had shaped him into being. Sakura poured every ounce of her energy into Asuma, making his cells multiply where needed and his blood clot where necessary. 

 

Her vision was quickly tunnelling in, the black spots that had been on the edge of her vision swarming closer to its centre. Chakra burn began to make her hands hurt and the small hissing sound was coming from where the rain came into contact with her hands. 

 

Sakura coughed, choked on her breath and tasted iron but she kept going. She kept going until her vision blackened completely and her body slackened. She kept going until she didn’t have anything else left to give.  

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Chapter 37: The Memorial Stone and Her Nindo

Notes:

HI, GUYS <3 Happy Fire Friday, lovelies :)

Thank you so much for your kind words in the last chapter and I'm sorry I'm having trouble answering comments at the moment. I managed to answer like, four last chapter before anxiety won lol I hate that bitch, she nasty.

Thankie, A, for always having my back <3

Enjoy, y'all :)

Sakura woke up slowly. She was in a dark room lit by a few candles, staring at the stark wooden ceiling, lying flat on her back on what felt like a sleeping bag. She took a deep breath and promptly choked on it, the pain in her everything bringing her to full wakefulness.

 

“Hey there, Petal, careful now.” It was Genma, lifting her by her shoulders and supporting her so she could take a few sips of a proffered bottle of water. He gently set her down again when she was ready. “Took a nice nap?”

 

Sakura stared at him, vaguely noticing that the rest of her team was slowly making their way closer to her sleeping bag. Genma had a furrow between his brows even if his tone and words were light enough. He seemed worried but not sad so Sakura cleared her throat and prepared herself to ask the question she dreaded the answer the most.

 

“Is he alive?” Her throat was scratchy but Genma quickly nodded and the immense wave of relief that came over her didn’t let her feel all of the pain. 

 

Sakura took a shaky breath and smiled, her lips stretching painfully because of how chapped they were. Genma brushed her hair with one hand while Yugao drew her attention by squeezing one of her hands and Tenzou sat down at her feet.

 

“I’m so glad,” Sakura sobbed weakly, tears that she hadn’t felt forming falling down her face and pooling uncomfortably on her ears. “And everyone else?”

 

Tenzou seemed to be about to speak but Genma quickly cut him off.

 

“Everyone is okay, Hime-chan. Asuma is asleep over there and Keiichi hasn’t left his side. We asked Boar to come assist us with healing the two of you and he arrived just a couple of hours after to relieve Keiichi. They’re taking shifts now.” Genma smirked slightly at her, his jaw working restlessly even though his senbon was nowhere in sight. He carefully brushed her tears away. “You fucking scared me, Sakura.”

 

Sakura tilted her head to trap his hand between her cheek and shoulder. She wanted to get up and give him the tightest hug she could muster but she was feeling dizzy even while laying down so she didn’t even bother to try. Yugao’s hands were in her hair then, brushing some of the tangles but mostly mussing it up even more. 

 

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Sakura whispered, “I’m okay. I did it.”

 

She wanted to tell them everything about the fight and how it had felt to have the Byakugou seal finally complete itself but she lacked the strength. That night wasn’t the time for such conversations, she would have all the time in the world to tell them all exactly what had happened but for now, she just wanted to make sure everyone was okay.

 

With that thought, Sakura furrowed her eyebrow and craned her neck to look around the room. 

 

Behind Yugao, she could see Keiichi’s back as he sat next to Asuma, one hand on his wrist keeping his heartbeat in check and the other pressing periodically against his torso with medical ninjutsu. Kakashi was nowhere in sight.

 

“He’s securing the remaining bandits on the downstairs floor,” Genma offered without her having to ask. Sakura frowned again, not liking that he was given the task to do it on his own but appreciating the fact that he was good enough to be still walking around. 

 

“Where are we?” There were a million other questions Sakura wanted to ask but she settled for that one at first. 

 

“I created a building right where we were, Sakura,” Tenzou offered her a tired smile which she tried to return. “We’ll probably be here until they send a caravan from the prison and some medics to transport you and Asuma.”

 

Sakura wanted to argue that she could make the trip home but thought better of it. While she absolutely hated admitting any kind of weakness, she still couldn’t even sit by herself. She had to give her body some time to get over her chakra exhaustion. Lots of food and extensive meditation were in order. 

 

“Kakuzu?” Sakura rasped and watched with narrowed eyes as her teammates exchanged glances. “He got away, then.”

 

“Yes…” Genma trailed off but when met with her slightly annoyed face continued, “We had him surrounded for a second there, dude was creepy as fuck. Tenzou sent a wood clone but the bastard figured he was being followed just inside Water so… he’s gone.”

 

Sakura hummed discontentedly but shrugged her shoulder slightly. It couldn’t be helped. They would find the bastard soon enough and when they did, Sakura would make sure she was there.

 

“I like your new tatt, Wolfie-chan,” Yugao’s husky voice never failed to calm her down or bring her comfort. Sakura turned her head slightly to grin at her senpai and squeezed her hand.

 

“I look hot, huh?” Sakura asked cheekily and was rewarded by her teammates chuckling.

 

“You always look hot, Hime-chan,” Genma flirted back and winked at her, his face looking impossibly tired as he pressed the tip of his index finger to the middle of her forehead. “We’re so proud of you. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again I swear to fucking Hashirama that I will murder your pinky ass.”

 

Sakura snorted and rolled her eyes but immediately had to fight a wince. Chakra exhaustion always took a toll on the body and even Sakura’s perfect chakra control couldn’t completely jump back from it. She had truly hit zero per cent of her reserves and while there had been some decimates there to keep her alive, Sakura knew she could have died from trying to save Asuma. 

 

It was a worthy death in her opinion.

 

“Everyone’s injured,” Sakura remarked calmly, letting her eyes catalogue her teammate’s injuries. There weren’t many and most weren’t serious but it was enough that she would have sent them to the hospital if they had been in Konoha. “We getting a team of medics?”

 

“Yep,” Yugao popped her ‘p’ and grinned at her, trying to put her worries to rest. “They should be here later tonight and then we’ll leave in the morning, probably. But it’s nothing life-threatening, we can wait.”

 

Sakura let her sharp gaze follow their limbs for a few seconds longer before nodding and agreeing with her.

 

“Shouldn’t Kakashi have been back already?” Sakura couldn’t help but ask.

 

At the same time that she was genuinely wondering what was taking him so long, a part of her craved to see him, to confirm with her own eyes that he was in one piece. His absence from the room left a Kakashi-shaped hollow inside her.

 

“You know Hatake, Hime.” Genma shrugged. “He’ll be back when he’s ready.”

 

Sakura nodded but couldn’t ignore the slight pang in her chest at the thought that he didn’t have the same urge to see her well and awake. She understood that it must have felt stifling staying in the room with the windows closed and two teammates bedridden but still. It did sting.

 

Sakura took a deep breath and was satisfied it didn’t stutter in her chest. Slowly, with Genma and Yugao’s help as Tenzou watched her like a hawk, she sat up. 

 

“Take me to Asuma,” Sakura wasn’t sure if she was asking or ordering but despite Genma’s clear need for protests, he kept his mouth shut and helped her up.

 

“No chakra,” he said, his voice firm and leaving no room for arguments as he helped her the few meters to Asuma’s bedroll. 

 

“I just want to do a quick check up, see if we didn’t miss anything.” Sakura tried to reassure him as he lowered her to sit next to Keiichi.

 

The Hyuuga offered her a relieved smile but he looked too tired to do anything else. Beads of sweat slid down his forehead and his eyes were drooping and Sakura knew he was nearing his limit. She gently took the hand pressed to Asuma’s torso away and let him rest some as she took over. Sleeping had raised her reserves to ten per cent and while it would have been dangerous to anyone else to even be standing up, Sakura’s control made it marginally okay to do a simple survey.

 

Asuma’s system was working by itself but only barely so. Sakura had managed to reverse most of the damage done but the internal wounds weren’t completely healed and needed constant attention so they wouldn’t open again, hence Keiichi’s upkeeping. Sakura asked a few questions and poked around with the tiniest amount of chakra she could manage, just enough to see that he could survive until the relief team from Konoha arrived.

 

“I really did teach you well, ne Keiichi?” Sakura murmured, a bit teasing but meaning it completely. His work was impeccable. She tiredly let her head rest on his shoulder and even though it was more slumped than the perfect Hyuga posture he usually kept, she relished his warmth. 

 

“You should rest, sensei,” he replied and Sakura would bet that if she had the strength to lift her head to look at him, he would be blushing. She chuckled weakly.

 

Just that tiny bit of work had her sweating and shaking and she didn’t protest much when Genma scooped her up in his arms and took her back to her bedroll. 

 

Asuma would live, she was sure of it, and after confirming that, she didn’t have enough of a reason to fight to keep herself awake. So Sakura smiled slightly at her friends, closed her eyes and immediately fell asleep.

 

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The Team from Konoha arrived just before dusk and Sakura didn’t wake again. Kakashi felt like shit for not being there when she did but the sight of both her and Asuma lying on their bedrolls so still and pale had been too much after a while. Kakashi was exhausted from his fight but he pushed forward with his pack, coordinating with Sakura’s for them to stand guard around the building while Pakkun and Kaoru led some of the others on a hunt to see if they could catch Kakuzu’s scent.

 

Thankfully, Shizune had arrived with a team of iryo-ninja to take over Asuma’s treatment and take them to Konoha. She had checked Sakura over, looking completely dumbstruck at the sight of the lilac rhombus on her forehead before declaring she would be okay. 

 

Sakura was put under a chakra induced coma for the way back after Genma related she had briefly gotten up to check on Asuma. 

 

The trip back to Konoha was a blur to Kakashi, he was so lost in his thoughts that it was a miracle he didn’t kill himself by accidentally jumping on the wrong tree branch. 

 

That day had been one of the worst of his life. Leaving Sakura and Asuma to deal with Hidan had been one of the hardest things he had done even though he knew that it had been the right choice. The fight with Kakuzu, while fast paced and incredibly dangerous, hadn’t made his heart stop in fear like it did when he managed to come back to Sakura.

 

Seeing her getting a fucking spear through her chest was something he hadn’t been prepared to. The blood—her blood—was everywhere. It splattered on the skin of her neck and jaw and dripped down to the floor in rivulets and then she had laughed. 

 

Kakashi was sure he hadn’t been breathing by that point. His throat felt raw and he vaguely remembered screaming her name but Sakura turned the whole thing around so fast he barely had time to react. 

 

And then Asuma… fuck, Asuma.

 

Kakashi couldn’t believe how close he had gotten to losing his friend. Whenever facing an enemy of that level and having the fight escalate so much, the sight of so much blood… Kakashi had been prepared to lose them both that day. 

 

There wasn’t a part of him that believed everything would turn out to be okay because so far in his thirty-two years of life, things hadn’t. Now that he was faced with the positive outcome of everyone on his team surviving, he wasn’t really sure what to do with himself.

 

He felt a strange mix of feelings. Both proud and terrified, angry and relieved. If he thought too much about it, it got hard to breathe.

 

Kakashi spent the first day back locked inside his apartment with the lights off and his mask pooled around his neck as he tasted the staleness of the air around him. He made himself get up and take a shower the next day but when he finally mustered enough strength to reach the cenotaph, it only took one look at the gleaming stone and then he was shunshining back home.

 

If he had lost someone, he would have gone there. He would have written his report, talked to the Hokage and spent the next twelve hours standing vigil at the memorial. Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to do that now that both his teammates had survived.

 

The day after they got back, Sakura got released from the hospital and Kakashi’s life became progressively more complicated. He hadn’t slept much and when he did it was always perched on a tree around the village. He thought it was great that Konoha had finally been getting back up on its feet after the Konoha Crush but it was fucking awful having to learn how to be permanently back at the village with all of this free time on his hands.

 

If it had been a few years ago or even a few months, he would have been sent away immediately after day three in the village, sometimes even earlier than that. And he had gotten used to it. Now, Kakashi had no idea what to do with his free time. 

 

During that week, Kakashi kept himself isolated from everyone else. He didn’t talk to anyone safe for Kurenai for a brief moment at the hospital and Usui once he had been accosted at the market. Still, the fresh scent he had associated with Sakura followed him everywhere. 

 

It was on the memorial just when he arrived, on a random tea shop while he walked around Konoha, on the Hokage tower, Usui’s office and the hospital the one time he went to check on Asuma. At one point, he could swear that he could smell her around his apartment complex. Kakashi wasn’t sure if he was subconsciously seeking out her scent—and consequently, her— or if she was just everywhere he went. 

 

All he knew was that he felt off kilter after spending so much time with them and now being completely apart.

 

The day Asuma got out of the hospital about ten days after they had returned, Kakashi’s presence at the Rusty Kunai was requested. More like demanded in the form of Asuma and Gai storming his apartment and forcibly taking him there. 

 

It’s not like Kakashi didn’t enjoy these outings, he had long since learned the importance of this particular tradition after a jounin mission, but he had still been feeling off and would have prefered to have summoned his dogs for a night camping in the woods if possible. Still, Kakashi pushed those feelings away and followed his friends to their usual table at the back, strategically positioned so most of them could keep their backs to a wall and watch the exits.

 

Everyone seemed to be there, even people who hadn’t been a part of their mission, and they were well into their cups of sake when Kakashi arrived. Given how Gai had been particularly loud and Asuma particularly handsy when retrieving him from his apartment, Kakashi figured they had been mid festivities before going to get him. 

 

Their usual booth in the back was near the bar and there was a table for six squished behind them and between the counter and the wall. From the booth they could see both the main entrance and the corridor that led to the bathrooms and the back entrance. That day, the table behind them was completely full with their fellow jounin and Kakashi was promptly deposited on their booth by his well-meaning friends.

 

Across from him sat Asuma, Gai on his left and Kurenai on his right, laughing almost as upriously as their green-clad friend. Tenzou was already on Kakashi’s side of the booth when he fell right on his ass from Gai’s push and Kakashi was relieved that he wasn’t being caged in and had a clear path to the exit if he wanted to.

 

He drank from the bottle placed in front of him and joined the conversation from time to time but mostly focused on relaxing his shoulder to the appropriately slouched posture he usually kept. Somehow, some details of their mission had been leaked and the whole table plus the friends seated behind them, who refused to stay still for long and inserted themselves in their conversation easily, had been happy in teasing both Asuma and him about it. 

 

Kakashi blamed jounin and their penchant for gossip but mostly Tenzou and the way his mouth loosened when drunk.

 

It was at least half an hour after he sat down that his attention was brought back to the present when he caught a glimpse of pink hair by the entrance of the bar. The gust of wind from outside brought forth her scent and Kakashi’s nostrils flared beneath his mask as he was unable to look away. Genma was guiding Sakura by her shoulder and suddenly pushing her on the booth next to Kakashi before stealing a chair from the table behind them for him to sit on the end of the booth, effectively blocking Kakashi from leaving.

 

“Sorry we’re late,” Genma said, smirking around his senbon. “I had to drag Hime-chan out of the office.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and pilfered Tenzou’s drink for herself before shooting Genma a look.

 

“I told you I wouldn’t be coming, you’re lucky I can’t refuse free drinks.” Sakura turned her drink in one gulp and then moved to get Asuma’s, slapping his hand away when he protested. Kakashi tightened his grip on his cup, needing the alcohol to keep himself sane that evening although it was for nothing. Sakura made no move to steal his drink, let alone acknowledge him. Kakashi avoided looking directly at her. “No passing out before you pay for my tab, Jiji.”

 

Sakura looked at Asuma and him, giving them a happy grin that made Kakashi’s chest hurt. She took Asuma’s hand in hers without any reservations and guided her usual softly glowing medical chakra over it for a few seconds.

 

“Am I okay to drink, doc?” Asuma asked jokingly but there was affection in his face in a way that he used only for those he really cared about. Kakashi knew the mission had changed their dynamics but he was just then beginning to realise it hadn’t been solely because of his and Sakura’s cover.

 

“Barely,” Sakura scoffed and retrieved her hand to take a shot. “But I know better than to tell you not to.”

 

“Damn straight,” Genma said, filling their cups. “A toast. To not dying.”

 

“To Sakura.” Asuma raised his glass and Kakashi caught Sakura’s small, uncomfortable smile before doing the same with his.

 

“To Sakura,” everyone around them echoed.

 

Conversation flowed easily between the jounin and Kakashi was surprised to realise that Sakura knew all of them and was even friendly with some, the most shocking revelation being her semi friendship with Anko. It felt weird, having her so close to him after a week and Kakashi found himself cataloguing everything about her that had changed despite the fact that the sheer act of looking at her made it hard for him to breathe properly.

 

The first thing that caught his attention, naturally, was the Byakugou seal, branded lilac in the middle of her forehead. It caught everyone’s attention, actually, and Kakashi used the distraction that all of their questions provided to look closer without getting noticed.

 

Her scent was still the same but her hair had gone back to its normal pink and, instead of a ponytail, it was firmly secured into her usual braid. She was wearing the hakama-style pants she had used in the mission but instead of a hoodie, she was wearing a black halter top that clung to her form exactly like their ANBU shirt did. The red haori was something he had come to associate with her and it felt comforting somehow to see her back in it. That is, until it slipped down one shoulder and Kakashi saw that the halter top was actually a bodysuit. A backless bodysuit.

 

Kakashi avoided looking at her for the remainder of the night. His friends were still constantly teasing them and it kind of annoyed him at first that they would do it in front of Sakura, even to her but the more time he spent there, the more Kakashi relaxed. 

 

Maybe it was because he was well on his way to getting drunk or maybe it was the general warm atmosphere. Kakashi didn’t know, but he found himself slowly relaxing and joining in more actively on the conversation, his body slowly letting go of some of the tension it still held. It didn’t take long for him to slide down enough on his seat that his thigh bumped Sakura’s knee.

 

The contact immediately brought him to the present, but Kakashi couldn’t find it in him to pull back. Sakura was there, she was alive and she was warm. Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t known he’d been holding in.

 

The conversation turned more teasing than he would have liked pretty quickly. Everyone had had way too much to drink at this point and while Kakashi counted himself as still sober enough to walk, he wasn’t too far behind.

 

His fellow jounin were mostly making fun of them, laughing loudly about anything and everything regarding their mission, especially about Asuma’s and his currently growing hairs, Sakura’s role as his wife and the fact that Sakura had killed her enemy and Kakashi hadn’t. Of course, every single good natured jab had an undercurrent of tension. The threat of the Akatsuki hung over their head ominously and Kakashi could tell that despite their jokes, it wasn’t everyone that was comfortable with the cover story Kakashi and Sakura had used, mostly those who hadn’t gotten to work with Sakura yet.

 

Still, Kakashi couldn’t care much about the conversation going on around him when she was this close to her. Not when he had come that close to losing her. His gaze fell on her seal again before he quickly diverted it to the bottom of his cup.

 

The rookies and Gai’s team had joined two tables in the middle of the bar so they could all sit together well into their night. Kakashi thought it must have been around eleven when most of them arrived, at least three hours after Kakashi’s group. It took barely ten minutes for them to notice Sakura.

 

The pink haired jounin had started making her excuses to leave when their attack came. 

 

“Come on, Sakura~!” Tenten cajoled Sakura, trying to get her to get up. “Ino sent me here and if she sees that you’re leaving without even staying with us for a bit, she’ll…”

 

“She’ll throw a fit, that’s what!” Ino herself finished, placing both hands on her hips and glaring at Sakura briefly before looking at Asuma. Her gaze immediately softened. “Hi, sensei! I’m so happy to see you out and about!”

 

Sensei. The word hit Kakashi harder than he expected and he fought the urge to scoff. Kakashi could really never be compared to Asuma, Gai and Kurenai when it came to being a jounin sensei. He had never looked at the three of them like children. They had been someone he had to protect, guide the best he could and they had certainly been his, but he had failed them all, as he knew he would. 

 

The image of Sakura with a spear through her chest assaulted him suddenly, and he had to fight to keep his nausea at bay.

 

“Ah, thanks Ino.” Asuma scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. “We should head out to Yakiniku-Q soon, yeah?”

 

“For sure!” Ino exclaimed happily before shooting another firm gaze towards Sakura, who sighed and raised her hands in defeat. 

 

“Alright, alright!” Sakura got up unsteadily and Kakashi fought the urge to help her. “I’ll stay for a while, you harpy, but you’re paying for my next round.”

 

“Deal,” Ino said and pulled Tenten towards the bar while Sakura picked up the haori she had discarded on the back of her chair and shrugged it on.

 

She gave a general wave to the table, her gaze falling briefly on Kakashi. He crinkled his eye in a smile and waved back but didn’t acknowledge the heavy look on her face. Sakura set her jaw and turned to Genma to place a kiss on his forehead.

 

“Don’t count on me to put you to bed today, Shiranui, you better not inconvenience anyone else with your puking, you hear me?” Her words were harsh but her tone was joking in a way that only two people extremely close to each other could achieve. 

 

“Oh~” Genma laughed and squeezed her arm. “Are you planning on getting some today, Hime?”

 

Sakura shot him a look and didn’t answer, merely turned around with a wave of her hand.

 

The mood around the table had shifted slightly and the sudden quiet made Kakashi focus his attention back on his friends and not on watching Sakura walk towards her friends.

 

“Isn’t she a little too young for you, Genma?” Kurenai asked, her eyebrows raised. Kakashi’s own eyebrow twitched at the reminder that Kurenai knew something about Genma that he hadn’t bothered telling Kakashi.

 

To anyone else there, it may have seemed like Kurenai was being firm with Genma because Sakura was younger than them but Kakashi knew that wasn’t the case or at least not all of it. For the past few months, there had been something going on between Genma and Shizune. Kakashi wasn’t one to pry but he knew that she had spent some nights there—they unfortunately shared a bedroom wall and it was all too easy for him to identify the woman on the other side. 

 

Despite Genma’s reputation, Kakashi knew just how much he was in love with Shizune. He knew that even if his friendship with Sakura seemed to be closer than what was probably appropriate for someone so much older than her, Genma would never cross that line with her, especially if he had something going on with Shizune. Of course, Kurenai only got Shizune’s side of this mess and hadn’t quite spent any significant time with Sakura yet to understand the situation. 

 

Kakashi sighed into this cup and settled back to watch the situation unfold. 

 

Genma rolled his eyes and didn’t acknowledge her look, but there was a certain kind of tension on him when he played with the senbon between his teeth.

 

“It’s not like that, we’re friends.” He shrugged and caught Kakashi’s eyes for a second before Kakashi could divert his look.

 

“Still,” it was Gai that jumped it, his lips pursed and eyes unfocused. “It's not exactly youthful behaviour to be flirting with a girl like that.”

 

Kakashi raised his eyebrows, only then realising that Gai was probably drunker than he looked. He usually wasn’t this confrontational even if that was truly what he believed to be the truth. Surprisingly, it was Asuma who stepped in despite Genma’s clenched jaw.

 

“That girl is the only reason I’m sitting here today.” Asuma reached for his lighter but didn’t grab a cigarette to light, only flicked it open a few times. The mood on the table had shifted dramatically but Asuma didn’t seem bothered by it despite the completely distressed look Kurenai now sported. “Besides, no one was calling any of us boys when we were that age.”

 

And wasn’t that the truth. Kakashi himself had already been an ANBU captain at the time, completely cut off from his jounin friends but not alone. Sakura was doing infinitely better than him at that age. 

 

The conversation turned towards more casual matters, the amount of alcohol in their system and the years of camaraderie between them not letting the tension evolve into any fights. Kakashi drank two more bottles of sake before movement on the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was Sakura.

 

She was getting up from the joint tables the Rookies had taken for themselves and putting her haori back on. Next to her, Hyuga Neji got up as well, his hand falling naturally on her shoulder before sliding down to rest on her lower back. Kakashi watched them as they left, perhaps for longer than he should have, a strange feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.

 

When he turned back to his table, Asuma was staring at him. 

 

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Sakura took a deep breath of the fresh air around her. Post mission sex with Neji almost never failed to put her to sleep but that night was a different story. It took her a few minutes of trying to fall asleep while he gently snored beside her before she silently got to her feet to gather her clothes. Now, she was almost back at the Senju Estate, enjoying the night breeze of mild Konoha air.

 

She took a long shower, still appreciating the fact that she had her own bathroom even after more than a week home. For a second she considered putting on her pyjamas and trying to meditate herself to sleep but quickly did the opposite. Within minutes she was outside again.

 

Sakura wasn’t one to indulge in cigarettes while in the village and—mostly—sober, but something about that night had made it seem particularly tempting.

 

She was being ignored. She knew it was bound to happen the moment Kakashi had failed to be waiting for her and Asuma to wake up but it somehow still managed to annoy her. Sakura understood, of course she did, but it still pissed her off.

 

She had done everything in her power not to attend that night’s jounin encounter at the bar but Genma was relentless. She had to admit, it had been good to be there even if she didn’t want to meet Kakashi. If he was avoiding her, then he could damn well be the one to seek her out.

 

Sakura sighed a cloud of smoke into the sky as she walked lazily through the training grounds.

 

Her head had been all over the place and, if she was being honest, she hadn’t really slept well since the night before the fight with Hidan. She wanted to blame it on the usual grief coming back from missions gave her but, ultimately, Sakura couldn’t lie to herself.

 

She had gotten used to sleeping next to Kakashi.

 

It wasn’t only the fact that she had gotten used to sleeping next to someone in bed, this last try with Neji had been proof of it. The problem was that she was now used to being engulfed in his scent and his warmth. The closest she’s been to feeling relaxed was when she had been sitting next to him in the bar. And what a shitshow that interaction had been.

 

The thing was, Sakura had come to terms with the fact that she was attracted to him. It had been easy, really, to appreciate his body, his face, his touch when he was decked out as Hatanaka Kato. Sakura hadn’t needed to question the natural physical attraction between them because they had been playing a part.

 

That night at the bar had forced Sakura to face some awkward realities.

 

She wasn’t just attracted to dark haired Kato. She had sat there next to Hatake Kakashi, fully decked out in his jounin uniform and hiding ninety-six per cent of his body, and felt warm. His shoulder almost brushing hers had made it hot enough for her to have to take her haori off and when her knee had touched his covered thigh… It somehow had felt more intimidating than the time they had to fake having sex in their tent. 

 

That sudden realisation coupled with the fact that Sakura just hadn’t been able to sleep well since coming back made her angry. She was way over the time she would have left something like this bother her, Sasuke was the last one she had felt something remotely similar to this and she would not do a repeat of that bullshit. Something like anger and apprehension had made Sakura take her frustrations out during sex with Neji and now… Now she just wanted to walk around a bit and put those feelings in a nicely locked box in the back of her mind. Inner was great at keeping those away.

 

Sakura walked for a long while after finishing that first cigarette and forcing herself not to have a second one. Damn Asuma and his corrupting ways, she would have to talk to Genma to help her out with quitting. 

 

That train of thought led her to remember the story Kakashi had told her about how he helped Genma quit and something warm settled inside her chest. It didn’t hold anything remotely as… frantic as her earlier thoughts had and Sakura sighed in relief. 

 

Inner had done her job and now she only felt affection when remembering those pre-mission days with him.

 

It took her a few more minutes of walking aimlessly for her to realise she had actually been going somewhere. As usual since coming back from a hard mission, Sakura had spent some hours at the cenotaph letting her eyes roam the characters and reminding herself of her nindo. It really wasn’t much of a surprise that her feet took her there when her head was so full and messy. 

 

What was a surprise was the lone figure standing there in her spot. 

 

Maybe it wasn’t really a surprise for her to find Kakashi at the memorial, the man always seemed to end up there but it was well past three in the morning and she had figured he’d either still be drinking with their friends or passed out. The sight of his now silver hair made her stomach flutter uncomfortably.

 

And immediately after, her anger returned when she remembered that the bastard had been ignoring her. Not only ignoring her but actively avoiding her around the village. Sakura didn’t know why it made her so angry when she had come to expect this type of behaviour from the man but that was… that was before. 

 

Sakura stepped away from the treeline and made her way towards him.

 

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It had taken longer than Kakashi had expected for his friends’ presence to be too much. The alcohol had numbed him considerably to Asuma’s curious gaze and Genma’s teasing and Sakura’s absence but Anko… Anko had really pushed it.

 

“Eh~!” Anko had thrown her arm around his shoulder, pushing her chest into his arm as she brought her face closer to his. “You really are getting old, huh? I remember a time you would have been long gone, celebrating with your sweet, young ex-wife .”

 

The reminder that the jounins knew about their cover had made Kakashi sigh and make his excuses. The worst part being that Anko was right. He would have done that if Sakura had been anyone else. Instead, he was stuck feeling off, feeling her scent everywhere he went and having to watch her leave with the Hyuga—the Hyuga, Gai’s kid, which turned out to be her boyfriend according to Keiichi.

 

“Meh, they’ve only been going out semi-regularly for the past five months, I wouldn’t exactly call it dating.” Genma had brushed him off but still, Kakashi’s gut had clenched uncomfortably.

 

He went back home and took a warm shower, hoping it would help him sleep. Not that it had done anything for him the past week but Kakashi thought maybe the alcohol would do the trick this time. No such luck. 

 

So his feet had guided him to the memorial. As he had expected, Kakashi had been assaulted by flashes and memories from his last mission. He sent his prayers to Rin and Obito and asked them for guidance. At one point, his head was such a mess he was sure the details of his memories were getting crossed over, the rock that killed Obito falling on Asuma, his arm running through Sakura’s chest.

 

Kakashi brought his mask down so he could take a few gulps of the fresh night air. 

 

Seeing Sakura get impaled like that had almost killed him. He knew it wasn’t an exaggeration. If she had died then, he didn’t think he’d have the strength to keep going. Enough was enough and Kakashi couldn’t lose anyone else from his pack. 

 

He had expected this to happen over four years ago when Sakura was a fresh genin and absolutely useless in the field. At the time he had thought that she would either become a career genin or die early because of a mistake during one of their missions. He had made it a point not to get attached to her because he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

As time went by and Sakura climbed the ranks at the same speed that Kakashi himself had at her age, this scenario started to change. Sasuke and Naruto, the ones he had really been invested in had left him, had left them and with it came a certain bond between Kakashi and Sakura that he hadn’t been expecting. The fact that she had started learning medical ninjutsu had helped tremendously in making him more open to the idea that she was pack . She was there, she hadn’t left him and he had to do something.

 

In the years that followed they had gotten closer, especially after he had given her his father’s wolves. She was officially part of his pack, his family. Despite not being placed in any missions together and having been mostly without seeing the other around the village, they had made a point to reach out to each other in different ways. Small gifts, tiny acts of affection that held their bond and helped it grow. 

 

Then this mission fell on their laps. 

 

Kakashi hadn’t expected to have grown so much closer to her in such a short amount of time. It seemed ridiculous but given their bond, he really shouldn’t have been surprised. At this moment in his life, she was probably the one person he trusted the most. 

 

Seeing the end of her fight with Hidan had probably cost him a few years of life and if his hair wasn’t already silver, he imagined it would have gone grey a long time ago. 

 

It seemed like his thoughts had summoned her. Sakura was standing a few meters behind him and Kakashi could feel her irritation from a mile away. He brought his mask back up his nose but didn’t turn to acknowledge her.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

 

Kakashi hummed noncommittally and kept his eyes on the moonlit stone before him. Sakura’s perpetually halfway compressed chakra churned dangerously and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

 

To be perfectly honest, Kakashi didn’t need this right now. He hadn’t had enough time to process any of the things that had happened and come up with a plan to go forward, and he needed more time. Of course, that wasn’t how things worked with Sakura. Despite her calculating personality, she wasn’t one to beat around the bush and let things take their natural flow, choosing instead to take any problems head on.

 

“You know, if you weren’t a grown ass man it would be funny that you can’t look me in the eye,” Sakura said, coming to stand next to him but curiously not looking directly at him. Kakashi watched from the corner of his eye as she traced the characters in the stone with trained eyes in a way that made him think she had done that countless times before. 

 

The crinkle between her brows deepened the longer Kakashi stayed silent and instead of giving up and going away like he was hoping she would, Sakura kept talking.

 

“Look, if this is about… our cover, you need to stop worrying. The gossiping will cool off in a couple of weeks and I’m pretty sure it’s only going around the jounin and…” Sakura sighed a bit and shrugged her shoulders. “We’re professionals, Kakashi.”

 

When Kakashi failed to engage, only let out a particularly strong breath, Sakura threw her hands in the air and turned fully towards him. She forcibly pulled on his arm until he was semi-facing her. 

 

“Will you fucking look at me?” Sakura exclaimed, frustration and anger clear in her voice.

 

Kakashi couldn’t not look at her. His eye found hers briefly before raising to the rhombus in the middle of her forehead, thanking the universe for its existence. Her green eyes were like magnets and soon enough, it was physically impossible for him to be looking elsewhere.

 

“You almost died.” Kakashi didn’t recognise his voice. It was very low and soft and it almost felt like the words hadn’t come from him at all. I almost lost you, he almost said, but managed to keep the words locked behind his teeth. The truth was, he hadn’t looked at her because he knew that once he did, he wouldn’t be able to look away.

 

He wanted to drink her in, let both of his eyes scan every inch of her to make sure she’s there and alive. Kakashi wanted to press her close to him like he had done every night before without fail and feel her scent on him everywhere he went the next day. Kakashi wanted to run away from this as fast as he could.

 

“Kakashi… we’re both elite shinobi.” The fight seemed to have bled out of her and Sakura’s voice was soft and her face impossibly understanding, it was almost enough to make him look away. “If I have it my way, I’ll die on the battlefield, fighting for those I love.”

 

“I know,” he managed to rasp, the words hurting his throat on the way out because, yes, he understood . It’s what he expected his own end to be like and he couldn’t hold her to different standards no matter how much the thought of it hurt him. 

 

Sakura sighed.

 

“You need to get used to this,” she said and Kakashi finally gathered enough strength to look away, his eye immediately going to the full moon above them. “This mission was a success, I’m pretty sure they’ll be putting us together in the future.”

 

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Kakashi nodded his head and briefly closed his eye before he sighed and looked back at her. Sakura was smiling gently at him but her features were completely closed. He wasn’t getting anything from her.

 

“Go to sleep, Kakashi.” She turned away from him, and Kakashi could feel that she was circulating her chakra, getting herself ready to shunshin out of there. “Konoha is going to need you pretty soon, you should get all the rest you can.”

 

With those ominous words, Sakura disappeared without a sound, leaving cherry blossoms in her wake. Kakashi frowned at the petals the breeze carried, his chest constricting with fear and trepidation.

 

What do you know that I don’t, Sakura?

 

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Sakura swiped her tantou in a wide arc and caught her clone in the throat. She had been focusing her training on using chakra to enhance her physique further and it showed good results for her speed. She was so fast now, she was merely a streak of red and pink on the battlefield. 

 

Her clone used medical ninjutsu to keep itself from bleeding out and the amount of chakra she had poured into it when creating it made it so it could withhold more hits. Sakura finished it in the next five minutes, panting and exhausted but satisfied that at least some of the nervous energy that had been coursing through her the past few days was gone. 

 

Sakura knew that Kakashi was going through something when he started avoiding her, but actually seeing him had been terrible for Inner’s self control in keeping everything bottled up. After spending so long watching him wearing a mask and then not, Sakura had become a bit of a master when it came to deciphering his tells. 

 

His face a few nights ago had almost killed any resolve she had. 

 

So she dove right into training herself to exhaustion. That was, until Tsunade had dropped a bomb in her lap that night at dinner.

 

Apparently, her name had been added to every Bingo Book, the Flee on Sight status she had on some of them being updated to them all, all of her aliases added and catalogued, many of her skills depicted. Tsunade had meant it as a compliment but Sakura hated the fact that she would be recognised everywhere she went. 

 

There was only one person who could have any interest in her being in the Bingo Books like that and Sakura vowed that she would kill the bastard. Kakuzu must have tracked the chunin they had accidentally let get away and between the two of them made sure she would be catalogued with a high bounty. That meant he was going to be coming to collect.

 

Tsunade had gotten her drunk that night, royally drunk as in Sakura was surprised she could even manage to fight her clone to exhaustion. Apparently, she had some congratulating to do for Sakura to have awakened her Byakugou seal. 

 

Sakura was still trying to figure out how it worked but Tsunade had been entirely unhelpful because apparently, the seal manifested itself in different ways depending on the person.

 

It was a strange thing, not having anything else to learn from her shishou. Tsunade was still leagues ahead of her from an experience point of view but she had finally said that she had nothing else to teach her. No medical ninjutsu, no battle skill, no trick that Sakura didn’t already know. Sakura felt oddly sad.

 

There was a thought inside her head, however, that didn’t leave no matter how hard she tried to shoo it away. Sakura had made it . 

 

Killing Hidan, while terrifying and scary it had been to be faced with losing her teammate, had proved to herself that she had made it. Sakura shunshined to the memorial again, having spent the past two nights there observing the stone.

 

Sakura looked at the characters and remembered the day she had keeled over and despaired over being left behind. Her nindo had been consolidated in front of that same stone and she could remember how it had been a monumental change in her life. She had decided after a while that she didn’t need to cut her hair to become a good ninja, a shinobi that would care less about her appearance than her fighting skills.

 

She had grown up, realised those weren’t simultaneously opposites of the other. Her appearance was as much a weapon as anything else and she had sworn to herself that she would keep her hair in a braid until she could back it up with her skills.

 

That day had finally come. 

 

Sakura wanted to cling to the days that she could tell herself she wasn’t ready, that she still had much to learn, but the truth was it was time for her to face the facts. Tsunade had clearly implied she didn’t have anything else to teach her, Sakura was feared across all nations and revered, she had killed an immortal R-ranked ninja. 

 

With shaking hands, Sakura untied her hitai-ate from her forehead. After a moment of consideration, she retied it around her neck and let her hands fall. She looked at the moonlit stone and let her eyes trace the characters once more while she took a few steadying breaths. 

 

She untied the end of her braid, her hands steady now, and thought about her next plan of action. She unwove the very end of her braid and started working her way up. Sakura would protect her friends. She would find Itachi and convince him to work with them if need be. She would drag Sasuke’s ass back home. She would stand strong and steady and she would do everything in her power to make sure her friends were safe and happy.

 

Sakura’s hair flowed freely down her back with the Fire Country breeze.

 

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     - art by preeshera-art who surprised me with this masterpiece. Thank you so much, ily - 

Notes:

SO. Imo, Asuma died in canon because Shikamaru needed the character development. I love him so very much but no one can convince me that he was a good ninja back then, pretending to be asleep while his friends were literally in the crossfire a few rows down. Nuh-huh. Shikamaru, like every (cough male cough) character needed something to happen to him to fire up his drive and in this fic, we'll stick with that first Sasuke Retrieval Mission fail... for now. Tbh I felt like I was taking something from him when I wrote this, despite the fact that writing a Sakura x Hidan fight scene has been my dream for a long time now. The more I think about it, the more I want to add something that would kind of give him back the chance to be badass and amazing and actively want to pursue a jounin career but I still haven't decided. Killing Asuma now would make no sense for the advancement of the plot. Sakura already has her own drive and the fire inside her is a fucking inferno, killing him now would only be senseless pain and I don't think it's valid.

On the topic of things that I haven't decided yet... some people said in the comments that they were sad but understood that it would only be realistic for Asuma (or someone) to die and... I do agree with that. Logically, if I think with my head. However, the mere thought of killing one of these characters makes me wanna cry now that I developed them lol And then my rational brain goes and says: "bitch, get over it, you wanted to write something realistic, you gotta kill someone. If you cry that means your readers will cry as well and isn't that the point of art? to make people connect emotionally?" well. Yeah. But also. Fuck, this year has been so awful, do we really need something else out there making us cry? Even if it is cathartic. I can't write or read anything that doesn't have a happy ending bc life is shitty enough, I don't want to create something that people will feel bad about for weeks. But then I go.... "what about a character that I haven't developed much?" and again my rational brain comes around to yell at me that that's kind of cheap. Anyway, my point is: I don't know if I'll ever kill someone in this fic. I'm a fucking softie, fucking sue me. Rest assured that if my rational side does win over my emotions, neither Kakashi or Sakura will ever die in any of my fics and there will always be a happy ending even if there's a bit of suffering before. Also, I will most definitely change the warnings in the tags. Speaking off, please take note that this is an Explicit story and that's for gore and all that we've already seen but also for sexual scenes. They will be much more descriptive once the main pairing gets together.

This chapter was very transitional but I felt we needed something chill after the emotional toll the last chapter took on us all, lol. Sakura made it. She's a fucking badass kunoichi and I feel ridiculously proud to have made it this far into her story and to see her progress (and mine).

Thank you all who reviewed so far, you guys have a special place in my heart even if you only did it once and it was just a few words. Thank you everyone who liked and bookmarked this story, sometimes I don't get emails about it but every once in a while I'll check my stats and be in complete awe of how many of you seem to be enjoying this story. Aside from a few bad reviews last chapter, you were all so sweet to me even though I could see how sad/mad/emotional last chapter made you. I appreciate every single one of you.

I really believe 2021 will be the KakaSaku year. I see the community growing and it makes me so fucking happy. Please, keep liking, reviewing and reblogging not only this story but others you enjoy as well. I know it might be a bit daunting sometimes but something as simple as copying the part you loved the most on a review or a line of emoji makes a difference. For those of you that create content, please keep on creating be it art or writing. And link me so I can reblog the shit out of it over on Tumblr.

Love you all <3

Chapter 38: The Weight on His Shoulders

Notes:

Hello, lovelies <3 Sorry I'm a bit late but it's Fire Friday :)

I made a slight mistake last chapter and completely forgot to add a piece of info that will influence things in the next chapters. If you want to read the chapter again and not read spoilers, stop reading now and go back. If you don't want to go through the trouble of reading the whole chapter again just for a few paragraphs, I'll give a quick explanation of what I changed.

Basically, Shizune and Genma are together. Now, I forgot to mention it last chapter because Sakura doesn't know it yet, but /Kakashi does/. So it was just a few quick paragraphs explaining that Kurenai wasn't mad about the whole Genma flirting with Sakura thing but she was sticking up to her friend Shizune when she saw her boyfriend shamelessly flirting with someone else. Does that make sense? Kurenai doesn't hate Sakura lol some of you were really mad at her poor girl, she's just a good friend.

Okay, now that you're caught up on what happened last chapter, carry on ;)

A huge thanks to A and Fox for helping me out with this chapter (and the next heheh). You guys rock.

Genma accosted her on her way out of the Hokage tower a couple of days after the bar. Sakura had just left the place to have lunch and fully intended to come back and help her shishou but he forced her to go out with him to a nice café in the civilian district instead. Sakura complained and made him swear to pay but she was glad he had sought her out like this.

 

Kakashi had sent Pakkun to her with a pair of wool socks earlier that morning. They were grey, imitating a dog’s paw complete with the toe beans on the bottom and fleece lined. The cheeky note written in Kakashi’s chicken scrawl said, “ For your icicle toes,” and it was signed with a henohenomoheji. 

 

It was an incredibly sweet gesture and despite his teasing she knew it was an apology of sorts and that it proved he was done avoiding her. But still, Sakura couldn’t help but feel slightly alone. She had spent every waking moment with either Asuma or Kakashi for the past month, basically, and while she appreciated the extra privacy, her routine when back in the village was something she had to get used to again. 

 

So Sakura welcomed Genma’s intervention with open arms and when he tried to rope her into training after lunch, she had to fight a smile.

 

“Asuma needs to get back into fighting shape, Pinky,” Genma had said while they ate. “What better way to do it but with a medic on our side?”

 

Admittedly, it was a surprisingly thoughtful plan of getting Asuma some exercise without actually killing the man. Sakura knew many jounin wouldn’t think twice about it, so she did the appropriate amount of teasing and playful contradiction before agreeing to it. They left the restaurant soon after, Genma muttering about cheapskate pink princesses, and then made their way to Genma’s where Asuma had agreed to meet him.

 

Sakura was sitting on Genma’s couch with Asuma, both smoking in quiet defiance at being made to wait for the older man as he tidied up his room. Sakura wasn’t sure why she had been delegated to the couch like she hadn’t been inside his room countless times and even slept next to him on occasion but she lacked the energy to complain. She hoped his walls stunk for at least a few days from their smokes.

 

Sakura had been wearing her normal clothes around the village to train, the hakama-style pants, halter neck bodysuit and her red haori, but having her hair loose down her back was definitely an adjustment. She was glad she would be getting a chance to train with it like this, especially since she didn’t know Asuma’s fighting style that well and it was always a nice change.

 

“You guys are fucking monsters,” Genma glared at them when he came out and Asuma only shrugged while Sakura snorted. “C’mon, let’s go before you turn my apartment into an ashtray.”

 

Genma was already opening his door while Asuma and Sakura lazily got up and pinched their cigarettes out before throwing them in the trash. 

 

“What’s up, Jiji, you weren’t in a hurry before,” Sakura teased as they made their way out and Genma turned to lock his door.

 

Before Genma could reply, however, they heard footsteps coming up the stairs and Sakura felt a familiar chakra signature. She turned to the end of the hall to see the top of Kakashi’s head coming up the stairs. It was comforting, seeing the locks turned silver again even if they were still significantly shorter.

 

“Yo, Hatake,” Genma greeted him and Asuma waved. Sakura offered him a small smile when he met her eyes.

 

“Yo.” Kakashi’s usual crinkly eyed smile was in place and Sakura tried to fill in his features with the ones she knew were hiding beneath his mask. She wished he would take it off again so she could have a refresher. He was dressed in the official jounin uniform, carrying a brown bag probably containing groceries in front of him. Sakura couldn’t help but notice the slightest of shadows beneath his only exposed eye.

 

“We’re going training,” Asuma said. “You should come with us.”

 

It seemed for a moment like Kakashi would refuse but Genma grabbed him around his shoulder and pulled him forward. 

 

“By now you should know that wasn’t a question, old friend,” Genma laughed and Asuma moved to grab the paper bag Kakashi was holding. 

 

It looked like this was a routine they had perfected well and Sakura stepped aside to let them through to the end of the hall where she figured was Kakashi’s apartment door. Asuma peered into the paper bag.

 

“That’s a lot of meat, you don’t usually eat so much red meat,” he observed while Kakashi begrudgingly unlocked his door and deactivated the traps placed there.

 

“They’re not for him,” Pakkun’s deep voice called when they came inside. “He’s making good on his promise to pay me back. Yo, Hime-chan.”

 

“Hi, Pakkun, I didn’t know you stuck around after being summoned,” Sakura smiled at the pug and crouched next to him so she could scratch behind his neck. “Is this for earlier today?” she asked as the other men went about putting Kakashi’s groceries away. 

 

“I don’t usually stay but the kid owed me so I’m here to collect,” Pakkun said, huffing slightly as he appreciated Sakura’s petting.

 

She looked quickly towards the kitchen to see the men were still there before she reached inside her pouch for some treats. She had started walking around with them ever since Kakashi started using Pakkun to leave her little gifts a few years ago and even though he disapproved of her spoiling the pug, she always kept some for him.

 

Pakkun was munching happily on his second treat of the day— of course she had already given him some that morning—when a throat cleared behind her. Sakura got up with the most innocent look she could muster and smiled at the three jounin in front of her.

 

“Ready to go?” she asked cheerfully, already stepping outside the apartment before any of them could comment. They followed behind her and Kakashi chuckled.

 

“You spoil him too much,” he warned, “pretty soon he’ll be fat from all the treats you give him. You know he already bargained way too much meat for doing that favour for me.” 

 

Sakura shrugged, ignoring how Genma and Asuma seemed to be lost in the conversation.

 

“I’m simply tipping him for the job, Kakashi,” she said, a tiny smirk on her face. “Despite your teasing, I did appreciate my gift.”

 

Kakashi hummed and kept his nonchalant posture as he moved to guide their group outside, but Sakura could see that there was a slight blush peeking from the top of his mask when he passed her. He was probably embarrassed that she had mentioned the thoughtful gesture, especially in front of their friends. Well, tough. Sakura snickered.

 

Their ragtag group took to the rooftops as soon as they could and made their way quickly to the training grounds behind the Senju Estate. From the way Asuma looked around curiously, it was clear he had never been there and it wasn’t any surprise considering he hadn’t been a part of ANBU.

 

They let their packs fall to the ground in front of a particularly thick tree and moved to stretch together at the centre of the clearing. 

 

“So,” Genma said, “battle royale?”

 

Sakura lightly punched him in the shoulder.

 

“This isn’t ANBU, Jiji,” she reminded him with a pointed look, “and Asuma is still recovering. We do a tournament style training, winner takes the next person.”

 

“The two not fighting can help each other on muscle building exercises,” Kakashi offered and Sakura agreed. 

 

She turned narrowed eyes towards Asuma and pointed a finger at him.

 

“No extensive chakra use, no overexerting yourself, and if at any point something starts hurting, you stop immediately,” she ordered him and was relieved when he raised his hands in surrender.

 

“Jokenpo to see who starts?” Genma offered.

 

Sakura fought at least twice with each of them before choosing to stop and relax for a bit. It wasn’t that she was still feeling weak from her almost death by chakra exhaustion but this was technically her second training of the day. Her routine of getting up as early as possible and completing her workout before breakfast was still one she adhered to even though she had moved on from Lee’s speed training. While she was good, she also had no intention of overexerting and hurting herself during training.

 

Genma and Asuma were sparring lightly in the centre of the clearing as Sakura leaned against the tree their things were deposited next to and Kakashi did chin-ups on the lowest branch of the tree. Sakura drank slowly from her bottle of water and counted Kakashi’s reps in her head. 

 

He had taken off his flak jacket and sweater like the other two and was wearing only his undershirt. Despite the milder Autumn air in Konoha, the sun was still beating down on them even as it had long since gone past its apex and it was hot with all the exercises they’d been doing.

 

Kakashi jumped down, stretched and then let his body fall forward beneath the shade of the tree to begin his pushup routine. A sudden memory of sitting on his back during her genin days made Sakura smile slightly. She didn’t have many reasons to smile about those days that she had been so utterly unprepared for life but on that lazy afternoon, Sakura found it in herself to reminisce. 

 

She got up and slowly made her way to him.

 

“Need some extra weights?” she offered and Kakashi paused before his next pushup to look at her. His eye crinkled in a smile and he pointed with his chin for her to get on. 

 

Sakura stepped out of her black sandals and sat herself down in the middle of his back, bringing her legs to cross beneath her as he did some experimental pushups to try his balance. Sakura stretched her arms up high as Kakashi found his rhythm before she slowly made her way into completely lying down on top of him.

 

Kakashi’s back was sweaty beneath her but there was still sweat drying on her bare back and she didn’t mind. He was warm and solid and the cool breeze on her sweaty skin was a nice juxtaposition to it. The only annoying thing was the particular sunbeam boring down directly into her eyes. Sakura wished she had something to cover her head with.

 

She turned her head slightly and smirked as a plan formed.

 

“Yo, Kakashi,” she fake whispered. “Psst.”

 

“Yes, Sakura?” Kakashi replied, amused and not even slightly breathless, the bastard. Sakura turned slightly to lay her arm fully against his back so her hand could slide closer to his back pouch.

 

“See, there’s something I’ve been thinking about lately,” she said, letting her hand rest there so he wouldn’t think twice of it when she moved. Kakashi hummed for her to continue. “Your birthday was during our second week in the mission, right?”

 

“Who knows,” Kakashi replied. Sakura scoffed and rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see it and moved her hand minutely closer to his back pouch.

 

“ I know, idiot.” Sakura closed her fingers around the clasp. “I know old people don’t like to celebrate their birthday but thirty-two is still relatively—”

 

Sakura didn’t finish her sentence because, in the next second, Kakashi had balanced his weight in one hand and brought the other back to close over her wrist. She had barely managed to get Icha Icha out, the bastard was good. Kakashi chuckled under his breath and released her, not losing his rhythm as he switched to one handed push-ups and then back.

 

“You could have just asked, you know,” Kakashi drawled and Sakura chuckled.

 

“Would you have said yes?” she challenged, knowing that he wouldn’t have. But of course, the bastard had to contradict her.

 

“Of course, Sakura-chan. Don’t you remember we agreed on fifty-fifty for our divorce?” Kakashi teased and Sakura could only gasp. Was he really kidding about that ? Sakura laughed.

 

“You’re fucking ridiculous,” she huffed another laugh before opening the book. She held it with her arms slightly stretched so it could protect her eyes from the sun. “This isn’t Icha Icha .”

 

The book had the same cover of Icha Icha Tactics but inside the first page said: Ancient Codes of the Earth Country. Sakura stared at it in confusion for a beat before Kakashi replied.

 

“Nope,” he said simply, not caring that Sakura was on the verge of an identity crisis. Had he been reading these kinds of books all along while the rest of the village thought him to be a pervert? What even was reality anymore. Kakashi huffed a laugh. “I can smell the smoke coming from your head, Sakura. Before you give yourself an aneurysm, let me tell you that I do read Icha Icha . Frequently.”

 

“You just also happen to read books on important subjects,” Sakura muttered, turning her head slightly to look at the back of his head. “Where did you even get this?”

 

“I stole it from the Earth daimyo’s library when I was sent to assassinate one of the lords in his court,” Kakashi said it like he was talking about going for a milk run and Sakura could only gape at him for a second before going back to the book.

 

“Huh,” was her eloquent reply. 

 

Sakura immersed herself in the pages of the book, holding it up over her head so the sun wouldn’t bother her eyes. She stayed there while Kakashi finished his reps, the sound of Asuma and Genma sparring serving as white noise in the background. 

 

After a while, Kakashi gently eased her off him so he could continue his training and Sakura simply flopped on the soft grass, book still in hand. By the time they left the training grounds, Sakura had returned the book but had been a few chapters short of finishing it.

 

When she got home later that day, it was sitting on her bed.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura sighed. 

 

She had been trying to fall asleep for the past two hours and it had been going terribly for her. It had been a few days since she last talked to Kakashi but he had sent Pakkun over with another book so she wasn’t too upset about it. At least he wasn’t completely avoiding her anymore.

 

She had surprisingly gotten closer to Asuma. The man had actually sought her out with Genma’s help the other day and the three of them had gone for a spar on the training grounds behind the Senju Estate. Sakura had been itching to ask if they’d seen Kakashi around but refrained from doing so after thoroughly chastising herself for even wanting to ask about him.

 

Kakashi was the same he ever was, their bond had gotten stronger, perhaps, but he still felt elusive even when they were inside the same village. If that was how he wanted things to be, if he really wanted that much distance from her since the mission, Sakura couldn’t do anything about it.

 

She wasn’t the same girl she was when Sasuke had left her on a cold bench. She wasn’t that girl and she would never go back to that ever again.

 

Sakura still couldn’t sleep well at night. 

 

The nightmares had mostly gone away but the fact remained that Sakura couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold sleeping in Konoha’s somewhat mild weather, underneath her covers. She knew that she was missing the literal furnace Kakashi had been but she crushed that thought and swiped its remains beneath the rug in the back of her mind. Inner brushed her hands together before putting them on her hips.

 

The fact was, Sakura had tried to fill that need to have someone next to her with Neji. The man she had actually been seeing before leaving for the mission. He had taken a couple of missions ever since she came back but the time they had found to work out their mutually beneficial arrangement, Sakura had backed out. After that first day after the bar where she had taken out her frustrations in the bedroom with him, Sakura had felt terrible.

 

She knew Neji didn’t harbour any feelings for her, at least romantic ones, but it still felt wrong to be taking out her frustration about another man on him. She had tried again the night before to lose herself completely in him like she had done in the past but she had only managed mild relief. He had hugged her to him as he fell asleep and Sakura tried to relax enough but somehow his hold felt constricting and she needed to breathe. 

 

Sakura had been avoiding his advances ever since, mostly out of guilt.

 

With another heavy sigh, Sakura pulled her haori over her pyjamas and got out of bed. It was close to midnight and she knew there wouldn’t be many people outside. Her feet were fucking cold and she was fucking tired, goddamn it. The mere thought of wearing the socks Kakashi had gotten her filled her with annoyance. She wanted him out of her head and the socks were firmly hidden in her desk drawer along with the last book he had sent over.

 

Sakura placed a cigarette between her lips before leaving the house. Shishou was still at the office in a meeting with the council and Sakura knew those tended to last long so she didn’t even bother trying to look for her.

 

She made her way to the store with lazy feet, smoke billowing out of her mouth and into the night sky lazily as she once again contemplated how heavy she was hitting the nicotine. It was all to stall this feeling inside of her, make her forcibly relax and focus on something else but it wasn’t exactly working. 

 

Sakura stubbed the cigarette outside the store and threw it in the bin before making her way inside. She was going to buy two fuzzy socks and some ice cream to go with the ‘bad days’ sake Tsunade kept at the house because fuck she deserved it.

 

“Sacchan?” 

 

Sakura immediately turned to watch Toshio open the door behind her. He was wearing something close to what he had on the last time he had found her at the store all those years ago, track pants and a white t-shirt, but his eyes were infinitely more alert than the last time. 

 

“Hey.” Sakura offered him a tired smile and came to loop his arm with hers to pull him towards the things she would be getting. “Did you just finish up for the night?”

 

“Yeah.” Toshio shot her a curious look which Sakura ignored as she chose the most garish pair of fluffy socks she could find. “Couldn’t sleep?” he guessed and Sakura only nodded with a small hum, pretending to be completely entranced in her new bright green socks with red polka dots.

 

Toshio wisely chose not to press her on the matter, only stepped closer to her as they slowly walked the isles, choosing items seemingly at random. Toshio chose some pens, a carton of milk and one single eggplant and Sakura grabbed her socks, ice cream and caved into buying another pack of smokes.

 

They talked about the new ideas Toshio had for ANBU after checking that it was Unmei-san who was manning the counter. Apparently, he wanted to install a permanent and mandatory field medical ninjutsu tier to the six months long training every ANBU operative did after they passed the entrance exams. That is, if they weren’t like Sakura and so many others that got carted into the shadows headfirst and way too young because of their skillset. 

 

Sakura agreed to help him out because of course she would and it seemed like a weight had been lifted off Toshio’s shoulders. Her close analysis of him had been one of the reasons she had gotten so good at reading Kakashi and vice versa, their mannerisms so similar it hurt sometimes. Sakura liked to think of herself as an expert in all things aloof and fakely joyous. Of course, this last mission had given her a bigger insight into Kakashi so she figured she was more… adept at reading him than Toshio but the thought still stood.

 

“So, are you throwing a party today?” Toshio teased her as they paid for their items. Sakura merely glared at him and threw an elbow towards his ribs that he neatly dodged despite how tired he seemed. 

 

“Tsk, Sakura-chan, these will kill you,” Unmei-san chastised her as she rang up her pack of smokes and Sakura threw a charming smile her way.

 

“Baa-san, if this is the thing that kills me I should count myself lucky.” Sakura figured there was nothing quite shinobi’s dark sense of humour, especially ANBU.

 

“I’ll have you know that I had one too many kids under my care falling prey to that nonsense.” Toshio put a heavy hand on her head and shook her a bit. He looked like he was going to keep talking but, before he could, the three of them stopped short.

 

A chakra signature crackled dangerously in the training grounds near the store, the ones reserved for ANBU that constituted the Senju backyard. Usually, spiked chakra in the training grounds was nothing new but it was well past midnight and the amount of killing intent in it was disconcerting. 

 

It took probably longer than Sakura would admit for her to recognise why the chakra signature seemed so familiar. It was Kakashi’s. 

 

Sakura was shunshining away before her brain could catch up to her body, leaving everything behind. She appeared suddenly in the middle of training ground sixty-seven and stopped abruptly in her tracks. She vaguely noticed Toshio had followed her but she couldn’t take her eyes off the figure in the middle of the clearing.

 

Kakashi was bloodied and soaked through with sweat, kneeling on the forest floor while his clone held the neck of his jacket with one hand and pummeled him with the other, each strike of its fist echoing around the clearing. The fact that Sakura could actually tell which one was a clone and which one wasn’t showed his state of mind. It was solidified by the countless craters around the training field.

 

He had used the chidori at least six times. 

 

Sakura was afraid to move, scared to interfere, but looking at him she had a vague idea of what this was about. Her next breath stuttered in her chest on its way out as Sakura’s heart tightened painfully. 

 

Suddenly, Kakashi was getting up quicker than she could catch without her chakra enhanced eyesight and bringing a kunai to slash at his clone’s throat. The puff of smoke disrupted the sudden quiet around the clearing and Kakashi stumbled with the memories from the clone.

 

At the same time he turned towards her, Sakura felt the chakra signatures approaching. The ANBU team that patrolled this part of the barrier and two others, probably Danzou’s men. 

 

“How long have you known?” Kakashi’s voice didn’t sound human. It was so deep and gravelly, like stone on stone, and it made Sakura’s instinct to flee or fight perk up. She forcefully pushed it down and stared at him with a frown, willing him to realise this was not the time to discuss anything, especially because they were out in the open with so many witnesses. 

 

Kakashi didn’t seem to be in any mind to realise any of these practicalities, though. There were a few cuts on him, all of them bleeding through and even his mask had a small tear in it. His eyes, both of them narrowed in anger so deep and raw, suddenly pinned her in place. 

 

“Now, Kashi-chan, let’s calm—” Usui stepped slightly forward but Kakashi turned the full force of his glare towards him and the man froze in place.

 

“Stay out of this, Usui,” Kakashi snarled, coming impossibly closer even as Toshio tried to step between them. “How long have you fucking known, Sakura?”

 

Despite the dangerous edge to his voice and the way he was looming over her, Sakura knew all of this anger wasn’t directed at her and the fact she hadn’t told him… well, anything really about what has been going on in the shadows and about Konoha’s bloody, shameful past. She knew Kakashi enough to realise the anger in his gaze was actually self-loathing and it made her pause to wonder where it was coming from.

 

Sakura’s eyes widened as she remembered whose team Itachi had been on during his short days as ANBU. Kakashi hated himself for what had happened because Itachi had been his subordinate and in Kakashi’s eyes that meant he had been a part of his pack or at least someone he had been responsible for. Kakashi was blaming himself for it.

 

Sakura sighed, stepped forward and grabbed Kakashi’s arm and held tight even as he tried to pull away from her. He was strong, even as she used chakra, and Sakura grabbed the front of his flak jacket so she wouldn’t have to use too much strength to restrain him. Kakashi snarled like a cornered dog and tried to push her away but Sakura held firm.

 

She turned her head slightly so she could catch Toshio’s eyes over her shoulder.

 

“Don’t follow us,” she said before calling on the teletransportation seal she had placed inside her bedroom.

 

The moment their feet touched the wooden floor, Kakashi ripped himself away from her and this time Sakura let him. She gave him his space as he clumsily knocked on her bed and fell onto it, his elbows immediately resting on his knees as he let his head hang down. 

 

Kakashi ran his gloved, dirty hands over his still shorter than usual hair. It had gone back to its natural silver colour but the sides and the back were still cropped short and the fringe fell over his eye without his hitai-ate to hold it away. Kakashi gripped at its roots before letting his arms fall and tilting his head slightly up so he could look at her. 

 

His eyes didn’t exactly reach hers but it was still something.

 

“I’m sorry, I—” Kakashi cut himself off, his head shaking slightly as if he couldn’t even find the words.

 

“It’s okay,” Sakura said simply. Then, feeling it would be better if she explained some, she continued, “I was the one who found out.”

 

“How?” Kakashi rasped, his voice hoarse from emotion. Sakura sighed.

 

“I was…” Sakura tried to steel herself. “I was looking for some answers about—about your past. I infiltrated the Hokage’s private files and found Hiruzen’s secret journal.”

 

Kakashi’s eyes finally snapped to hers and the Sharingan spun dizzyingly. Sakura tensed up at seeing it, but there was no chakra output from it and she forced herself to relax. Sakura tried to put herself in his shoes. 

 

While Tsunade had thundered and felt personally betrayed by the Sandaime’s inaction, she had a deeper relationship with the man than Kakashi had. That meant that she had already seen him for who he was, a flawed human who had already let her down. Kakashi had looked at the Sandaime the same way they had all been taught to. A god amongst men, someone invincible and untouchable, completely devoid of any flaws since he was supposed to be the strongest ninja in the village.

 

This was worse than having your sensei fuck up in a way because it wasn’t exactly personal. This was the equivalent of having the main character of a childhood story turn out to be evil in the end. 

 

For Kakashi this wasn’t about the Sandaime as in the man Sarutobi Hiruzen, but what the Hokage had represented. His leader, the one Kakashi was supposed to die for, the one who had led his friends and who was in charge of every single person in the village Kakashi loved so much. 

 

Sakura felt a fresh wave of anger directed towards those old bastards wash over her but she didn’t linger on the feeling. Kakashi seemed to be losing all of his energy by the second and his shoulders drooped as if he carried double the weight he had gotten used to carrying on them.

 

“It’s my fault,” Kakashi muttered, the sound so low, Sakura barely caught it.

 

She wanted to punch him and shake him until she could knock some sense into his thick skull but chose to take a deep breath instead. No matter how satisfactory blowing up at him would be, it wouldn’t be effective right then. Sakura had to take another approach.

 

She placed a hand on his shoulder and gripped his jacket until she could urge him to get up. With a gentle but nonetheless firm hold, she guided him to her bathroom. Kakashi felt pliant in her hands in a way she hadn’t been expecting but appreciated infinitely. She would take care of him.

 

“Please shower so I can heal you,” she said, her voice low as she used one hand to turn the shower on.

 

Kakashi turned to look at her then as the room started to fill with steam and his eyes bored into hers with an intensity that almost took her breath away. He looked so tired, Sakura wanted to take all of this weight off his shoulders by force if she had to. 

 

Hesitantly, Sakura reached for a particularly nasty gash on his arm to gather some of his blood on her finger. She completed the seals for the kuchiyose no jutsu and placed her palm on the countertop to call forth Pakkun. 

 

The little pug glanced between them worriedly but, seeming to sense the mood in the room, didn’t say anything. Sakura gave him a slight smile and turned to leave the bathroom.

 

“I’ll be outside.” She closed the door behind her and sat heavily on her bed.

 

A slight headache was coming and she could only imagine how Kakashi was feeling. Sakura got up from her bed, gave herself a few harsh pats on the cheeks and formed the sign to create a clone. She directed it to find some jounin uniforms at the Hokage Tower and made her way to the kitchen to grab him some water.

 

Her clone left the change of clothes for him next to Pakkun before popping out of existence and Sakura waited for Kakashi to come out. Once he did, she immediately pushed him to sit back down on her bed. She had already discarded her haori and was standing before him in her pyjamas, a pair of shorts and long sleeved shirt that were black and had a few silly pink cats on the hems that Yugao had gag gifted her. 

 

She wasn’t feeling self-conscious, especially since she had actually left the house in said pyjamas, but it was a bit of work to push down the realisation that she had Kakashi sitting on her bed while she stood over him with her silly pink cat pyjamas. Sakura raised an eyebrow at him instead.

 

“Shirt off.” 

 

“Sakura…” Kakashi started but Sakura cut him off with a stern look as Pakkun hopped on the bed next to his owner.

 

“Do you have any cuts on your legs?” Sakura started to kneel on the floor in front of him but changed her course to the bed halfway through when she noticed the sudden tensing of his jaw. Kakashi shook his head no, one hand scratching Pakkun almost uncomfortably hard and the other gripping his pants at the knee. 

 

After a while of him making no motion to take his shirt off, Sakura thanked him silently for only having put on the masked, sleeveless undershirt and got to work starting with the hand closest to her, the one not ‘petting’ Pakkun. 

 

She ran her chakra coated hands efficiently over his hand and arm but still took her time, quietly observing the scars that littered his body as she went and feeling impossibly sad that she hadn’t been there to heal them. She had reached his forearm when Kakashi began speaking. His speech was stilted and not entirely cohesive at times but slowly as she worked on both his arms, his chest and face, Kakashi told her things.

 

He told her about how the Uchiha used to be, how they had kept order but were at the same time so ostracized from the rest of the village. How they had shunned Obito and later on him for having his eye. Kakashi didn’t tell her about him but he didn’t need to. The fact that he had even said his name at all spoke volumes.

 

Kakashi told her about Uchiha Itachi and how scared he had been when the kid had been placed on the team. How Itachi had looked impossibly small but still the most stoic shinobi he had ever encountered and he wondered if that was how he’d looked like when his own sensei had placed him in ANBU.

 

Then he told her how exactly he’d been carted into ANBU, how he had risen through the ranks as fast as she had. How Usui had guided him and held him up once his sensei had died. Kakashi told her how he had done something similar to what she had and infiltrated the Hokage’s private archives and later on he had met Tenzou—who had been called Inoue back then—and pulled him away from Danzou’s clutches.

 

By the time Sakura had reached Kakashi’s back, he had gone silent. Sakura circled her chakra in a slower, warmer pattern and let it sink into his back, healing his wounds and relaxing his muscles as she went. 

 

Kakashi leaned back towards her and sighed. To anyone else it would have looked like he merely shifted and released a slightly stronger breath but Sakura knew better. 

 

“Do I even want to know where you got these clothes?” Kakashi asked, his voice lazy and low in the dimly lit room. Sakura huffed a small laugh.

 

“I sent a clone to the Hokage Tower to steal one.” Kakashi turned his head slightly to try and catch a glimpse of her behind him but Sakura put particular effort into her work and it made him stop in his tracks. She continued in a blunt tone, “I owed you a shirt anyway.”

 

Finally done, Sakura pulled on Kakashi’s arm until he conceded and followed her to rest against her headboard. She grabbed the cup of water she had placed on her nightstand and forced it into his hands.

 

“Drink it all,” she ordered and glared at him until he did so. She took the glass from him to put it back on her nightstand as he ran a hand over his tired face. 

 

“I should go,” he said, looking at Pakkun like he would somehow have an answer to all the problems in the world.

 

“You’re exhausted, Boss,” the pug said, his voice rough but gentle.

 

“You’re not leaving tonight, Kakashi.” Sakura glared fiercely at him when he started to protest and cut him off. “If you’re not comfortable sharing the bed with me despite doing it for almost all of last month, then I’ll sit on that nice chair over there and will watch you sleep at least six hours.”

 

Kakashi glared back at her, never one to back down and Sakura was satisfied to see there wasn’t any annoyance in his glare, only exasperation and slight consternation at being ordered around like that.

 

“Either way you’re not leaving this bed until the sun is up.” 

 

Kakashi glared for a few seconds longer but Sakura knew she had already won that round. Kakashi was tired and sleep deprived and after the bomb shishou had dropped in his lap, Sakura knew nowhere would feel quite as safe as her chakra sealed room. He grumbled all the way until he situated himself against her pillows. 

 

Pakkun got up from the foot of the bed to lay on Kakashi’s chest like they had done that routine countless times before and Sakura watched, fondness warming her chest. She waited for him to tell her to sit on the chair or to lie down on the other side of the bed but he did neither, simply closed his eyes.

 

After a few beats, he blindly reached for her and pulled her down towards him, fitting her against the crook of his shoulder like they had done while posing as Kato and Akari. Sakura’s breath stuttered in her chest before she forced herself to relax into his hold, feeling immediately warm even though she wasn’t beneath the covers. Pakkun gave a sleepy snort and Sakura’s hand reached for him without thought to scratch slightly behind his ear. 

 

Sakura didn’t have the strength to pull her hand back and fell asleep with it resting on Pakkun’s back, inches away from Kakashi’s.

Notes:

I... really like this chapter xD

I loved the way this weird little group just formed kind of out of nowhere but they all fit somehow. This wasn't planned lol but I like where it's going, I have some other things already written for the four of them so let me know what your thoughts are. Originally this chapter was supposed to be a part of an almost 14k chapter but I thought it was better if I split it since next chapter will have a different feel to it. I'm sorry if the wordcount is a bit disappointing but next one will be out just next week! :)

I battled a lot with how I wanted Kakashi to deal with the news but in the end I settled on this bc I think that the Uchiha are a really sore spot for him. Not only because of Obito but also Itachi and Sasuke and his own childhood dealings with the clan. In the end, Kakashi is someone who takes all the blame on his shoulders and I don't think he would have dealt well with this at all. It's different to have a reaction to something while you're in the middle of a battle like what happened when he found out about Obito in canon, this time he was in the safety of his village and he could break down as he saw fit.

This scene between them was also a bit of a comparison to that day where Kakashi had a panic attack when Sakura was healing him in the shower. On both sides they did a lot of growing and their bond became much stronger. Sakura allowed him his privacy despite not bending to his every whim or backing down in the face of his anger, she knew when to push his boundaries and also when to reign in what she really wanted to do - which was to literally take care of him like a baby, no such thing as modesty and just shake him around until he got his shit together instead lol. Kakashi let her in, let her see him at his worst and most important of all he /talked/. I think that's probably one of the hardest things for Kakashi to do so anytime you see this in the fic I hope you can appreciate it as much as I do lol. Putting his feelings into words or just telling someone about his past is extremely hard for him and he felt safe enough to do it with Sakura. Oof I'm talking too much, sorry.

Thank you so so SO MUCH. You guys, your reviews help me so much. While I have a good idea of where I want to take this fic and have a lot of it written already, it's always good to see where your heads are at and kind of get a feel of how I should proceed, which part should I pay more attention to. For example, you guys' comments on Kurenai on the last chapter made me remember that y'all can't read my mind lol so I went back to it and made things clearer. While I have to admit I don't particularly like receiving 'bad comments' (like people who list down everything they don't like in my fic lol) I really appreciate it when you guys give me your thoughts and tell me what you'd like to see in the future, even if that's not direction I'm gonna take it. Am I even making any sense? Lol I don't know, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I love you all and every single review gets a happy lil squeal and I take everything you say to heart. The past few months have been really hard in regards to my anxiety and I sometimes can't reply bc of that but I'm trying to be better, I promise ;-;

See you next week!

Chapter 39: A Ninja's View on Love

Notes:

It's Fire Friday, yo!!!

Thank you again for all the help, A and Fox, you guys are awesome <3

I'll let you guys get on with the chapter and chat your ears off after hihi

 

Sakura woke up the next day alone in her bed. Pakkun and Kakashi were nowhere to be seen and she couldn’t smell them in the room, which meant they left some time before. She could, however, smell Kakashi on her bedsheets. 

 

Sakura stared at the pillow Kakashi had occupied and frowned, thinking a bit hysterically that maybe she should be feeling… more than she actually was. She should be freaking out, she should be scared, she should be at the very least annoyed that he had bailed on her before she woke up.

 

And that was another thing. Even while safe inside Konoha within her sealed walls with Tsunade down the hall, Sakura generally woke up with sounds inside the mansion and even outside in the forest, her ninja instincts never quite asleep even if she was. Sakura hadn’t noticed Kakashi leaving. Either the mere presence of him had been enough to assure her subconscious there was no need for waking up because he was there or sleeping next to him after almost two weeks of fitful sleep had put her in such a deep state of sleep that even her instincts hadn’t been present to wake her up.

 

Either way, Sakura should probably be more freaked out than she was.

 

Instead, she got up and headed to the kitchen to make herself some tea. The clock on the wall read ten o’clock and Sakura knew she wouldn’t find her shishou inside the house, so she made breakfast for herself only and thanked fuck it was a Sunday and she technically had an off day from the office. 

 

After eating, cleaning and putting away breakfast, Sakura went back to her room and stripped her bed of its sheets. 

 

The thing was, even if Sakura herself wasn’t as spooked as Kakashi, she would bet every single one of her possessions that Kakashi would try and pull another disappearing act. And she really didn’t need to be smelling him on her sheets every night she went to sleep while he proceeded to ignore her around the village. Especially since she wasn’t kidding about them being partnered up in the future and she didn’t need this reminder to further destabilise Inner in her compartmentalization. 

 

Sakura was walking the bundle of sheets to the laundry room when she felt the chakra signature of someone outside. Completely confused and frankly blindsided, Sakura touched her hand to a wall to activate the seal and grant him passage. 

 

She realised a little too late that she was still holding her bedsheets when Neji rounded the corner from the kitchen. 

 

“Neji…” Sakura trailed off, unsure how to react. They hadn’t set up a time to meet and even though they had been strictly exclusive for the past five months, they didn’t make it a habit to show up uninvited to each other’s house.

 

“We need to talk,” he said, voice even more guarded than his face.

 

Usually, his manners wouldn’t have let him even enter the house without her having to greet him at the door and the first thing out of his mouth was always some sort of pleasantry. Sakura saw the way his milky white eyes dropped from her face to the bundle in her hands and back up. He now had the slightest of furrows between his brows.

 

“Neji, I—” Sakura cut herself off and shook her head a bit. “Do you want to go to the living room? We can sit and—”

 

“Here is fine, Sakura,” Neji cut her off not unkindly but decisively unyielding. Sakura warily put the bundle of sheets outside the door of the laundry room to her left and stepped closer to him. 

 

Neji didn’t exactly step away from her but there was a subtle tension in his frame that hadn’t been there before. Sakura frowned.

 

“I heard about the mission,” Neji started, his speech halted and in complete contrast to the smoothly polite way he usually spoke. “It’s all that could be heard at the jounin headquarters this past week.”

 

Neji clenched his jaw and Sakura tried to find the words to say something, anything, but they wouldn’t come. In the end, Neji kept going.

 

“I think it would probably be for the best if we took a step back,” he said simply, something coming over his features quite like acceptance. Sakura frowned, confused as to why he would say that just because of a cover for a mission and it must have shown on her face because he raised an eyebrow at her. “I know he spent the night here, Sakura.”

 

Sakura’s breath caught in her throat and Neji’s eyes flickered slightly to where she had placed her sheets. Even though she was confused as hell about what was going on with Kakashi, she knew how it would look for him. 

 

“Nothing happened,” she muttered, not knowing if she was being truthful or not. Because, yes, nothing had happened in any physical way but it certainly wasn’t normal for two ninja to be falling asleep like that entwined with each other.

 

Sakura’s breath sped up as she looked at Neji’s face, not wanting to end what they had but knowing deep down that it was unfair of her to just put him on the shelf and then take him out to take her frustrations on. Ever since a few months ago where they had started going out more frequently, there had only been him. And Sakura cared for him. Maybe not in a way that would have developed into something romantic but she did care for him and the thought of hurting him…

 

Neji hummed, nodded his head once and searched her face with his milky eyes.

 

“I don’t suppose it did…” Neji said softly and Sakura was glad he seemed to believe her even if she hadn’t exactly done the best job of explaining things. His face suddenly relaxed into something soft and affectionate, an expression she had only seen directed at her a few times so far. “Don’t look so sad, Sakura. We both knew this wasn’t something that would last forever.”

 

Sakura nodded, the tension between her brows furthering and she got the insane need to cry all of a sudden. She didn’t want to end things with him like this, especially since she knew there was nothing waiting for her on the other side. It was surely selfish of her to wish to hold on to him knowing that she would let go as soon as she had something else to latch on to but Sakura wished things could just go back to normal.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said instead, her voice just barely above a whisper.

 

Neji stepped closer to her then, his scent enveloping her as he held her jaw with one hand and pressed a light kiss to the centre of her forehead.

 

“Good luck, Sakura,” he said, stepping back. You’re going to need it, went unsaid but Sakura heard it all the same. There was a small grin on his face now, like he somehow found the situation amusing and Sakura just knew he was laughing a bit at her expense. “Don’t disappear. I’ll see you at Mozuku’s birthday, don’t forget it’s at the end of next month.”

 

Neji shunshined away and Sakura was glad that he didn’t see the way tears gathered in her eyes. 

 

Even though the whole thing wasn’t that big of a deal, Sakura still felt emotional, like it would take the slightest of inconveniences for her to have a bit of a breakdown.

 

It was selfish of her, she fucking knew that. It still didn’t stop her from feeling like she had fucked up and wishing things could just be cool for a bit. Sakura was scared of how easy it would be on her part to fall for Kakashi and fall hard and she also knew that it would be the complete opposite for him. Neji had been a constant for her that she needed in her life, something simple and easy and comforting. 

 

Sakura sighed harshly, rubbed her hands over her face even more harshly and turned around to finally get to her laundry. 

 

She pushed her feelings to the back of her mind and focused on her chores. Sakura cleaned every single part of the Senju Estate, ignoring the group of genin that had gawked at her as she did, dishevelled and still in her silly pink cat pyjamas. Since it was a Sunday, they would have been sent here by Tsunade to clean the place but Sakura simply signed their scroll and sent them away.

 

She showered utilitarily, using her chakra to block her nose from detecting any scents instead of using it to enhance it. The last thing she needed was to smell Kakashi there. She pushed the thought away violently. Sakura dried herself and put on her ANBU uniform, craving the anonymity of it for the day.

 

She made her hair the usual dark auburn she used for Wolf, matched her chakra to that of a bird’s and shunshined to just outside Tsunade’s office. She placed her hand on the red wall and used the tiniest amount of chakra to keep herself stuck to it.

 

“Tenzou-taichou,” Sakura said to the wall. “Could you please help me out?”

 

Tenzou unstuck himself from the wall, dropping his camouflage jutsu so he could tilt his head towards her in question. Sakura knew that Team Ro would be on guard duty that day and it must have alarmed everyone that she would address them while they were on duty. 

 

Sakura was beyond fucking caring.

 

“Is everything okay, Wolf-taichou?” he asked, concern masked in his monotone voice. 

 

“Everything is cool.” Sakura waved her free hand lackadaisically. She could feel Tsunade moving around her office as if she was about to open the window but stopping short. Sakura continued, “Could you make me a big wooden pole? And a platform big enough so I could sit on it?”

 

Sakura unstuck her hand from the wall and held herself only by her feet as she spread her arms as far as they would go to indicate she wanted a big pole.

 

“I—Wolf, what?” Tenzou stuttered and Genma snickered from where he was camouflaged on Sakura’s other side. Tenzou took a deep breath, readying himself to deal with his team’s eccentricities. “Sure.”

 

Tenzou made the seals and created a thin pole, three times Sakura’s height before creating a square piece of wood that must have taken some great chakra control to achieve. He handed them to Sakura.

 

“Do you want them to be stuck together?” he asked and Sakura shook her head, putting the square beneath one arm and the pole beneath the other.

 

“Nope, this is cool. Thanks, Tenzou-taichou.” She smiled at him even though she knew he wouldn’t be able to see and gave an awkward nod of her head. “Ja!”

 

Sakura shunshined back to the Senju Estate, directly on top of the roof. It was the same pagoda style as the outpost on the border with Water but much more extravagant and silly in Sakura’s opinion. She climbed to the very tip of it in the centre and stuck the wooden pole to it with chakra.

 

The exercise of getting to the very top and balancing herself cross legged on top of the small square had been hard when she was younger, but nowadays it felt like second nature to Sakura. It was Sakura’s favourite form of meditation, and she usually did it with a clone or two next to her doing the same thing. That day, she would need the extra concentration that having the clones didn’t leave room for.

 

Sakura dropped her mask between her legs and let go of the genjutsu keeping her hair auburn before closing her eyes. She created a concentration seal and let the wind drift through her loose hair.

 

Finalizing her Byakugou seal had been exhilarating and fantastic but Sakura needed to be able to control it. It wouldn’t do to go about passing out every time a battle was finished. 

 

Tsunade had said that it was only the first time that her system wasn’t still accustomed to having so much chakra in it and then cutting it down but Sakura didn’t want to take any chances. She would give herself some time to get used to this seal and then move to the next one. With enough chakra control, there were other tenketsu that she could make into Byakugou seals and she would take full advantage of that in the future.

 

For now, meditation.

 

Sakura focused on the flow of her chakra inside of herself, the direction it took, the speed at which it left her tenketsu and circled her whole body. When she was ready, she released the seal on her forehead slowly, almost as if she was creaking a tap open just the slightest bit so it would start to drip.

 

The warmth spread across her forehead but didn’t go further and Sakura knew the mark of the seal had spread there. She focused on the feeling of her chakra, noticing how it was so much warmer than usual. Like her normal chakra pathways was a circling pool of cool water and someone suddenly turned on the hot tap.

 

Sakura noticed how the pathways inside her head dilated to accommodate the sudden influx of chakra and that got her thinking. Were her chakra pathways getting bigger every time she activated the seal like her veins did when filled with oxygen and water? She wondered if she could expand her chakra reserves by doing this exercise.

 

The new warmer chakra stayed on her forehead as she only opened the seal minimally but it somehow influenced her own chakra, making more of it flow through her whole body. 

 

Sakura felt curious about this new development, trying to figure out how to enhance the Byakugou seal and learn how to fully control it was going to be fun. 

 

So far she knew that the chakra helped enhance her body and sped up cell regeneration if necessary. So if one cell died, another would be quickly formed by chakra alone and replace it. That way, any injury she was dealt would almost immediately heal but it would also impact the natural lives of her cells. Instead of it having a counted number of replications to perform, Sakura could keep it replicating infinitely, rendering her… Immortal.

 

Well, technically.

 

To achieve that, Sakura would have to keep the seal open at all times and that was counterproductive because she wouldn’t have enough chakra to maintain it constantly active. Now that the seal was activated, though, the process of ‘filling it up’ was much easier than the four years of chakra storage she did before.

 

Those four years had served for her to give enough energy to the seal so it could run by itself. It worked as an enhanced type of tenketsu, generating chakra by itself.

 

Sakura kept meditating until the sun gave way to the moon in the sky. It wasn’t completely dark, but she had had enough of meditation and ignoring her problems for the day. She could have kept going if it wasn’t for the chakra signature that suddenly appeared on the roof next to her.

 

“Are you getting down from your perch anytime soon?” Yugao asked, her pretty purple hair billowing in the wind, cat mask still in place. 

 

Sakura quickly jumped down and carefully set the pieces of wood in a way that they wouldn’t fall down. She stepped closer to Yugao and watched as she cocked one hip and extended one hand with a plastic bag hanging from it.

 

“Hi,” Sakura said before reaching out for the bag.

 

“Hey, Wolfie-chan,” Yugao chuckled as Sakura opened the bag and raised her eyebrows.

 

Inside were the garish pair of fluffy socks she had bought the day before, a tub of ice cream and a pack of cigarettes. Sakura sighed.

 

“Toshio sent you to check up on me,” Sakura guessed but didn’t need the other woman’s confirmation.

 

“He actually talked to all of Team Ro about what happened. You know he’s a gossip.” Yugao shrugged and Sakura rolled her eyes with a scoff. Toshio wasn’t a gossip, but he did care for them and Sakura could only imagine how the night before must have looked for an outsider. “I told the boys I would handle this one.”

 

Sakura averted her eyes to the rising moon and nodded once before closing the bag again and letting it hang by her side. She gave Yugao a crooked smile and tilted her chin up.

 

“Wanna get smashed?” she offered, making Yugao laugh.

 

The other woman put her arm around her shoulders and together the two of them jumped to the grass beneath them. Sakura walked with her senpai so they could get some of the sake bottles Tsunade kept around and then made their way to the living room.

 

They cracked open a bottle and the tub of ice cream and dove in with gusto. It was only after they had filled up a bit that Yugao decided to pry.

 

“So,” she shot Sakura a look as they sat on opposite ends of the couch with their legs crossed and facing each other, “do you want to tell me what happened with senpai?”

 

Sakura pursed her lips, actually wanting to spill everything to Yugao but somehow refraining from doing so. No matter how much she would have liked some type of advice on that end, she couldn’t tell Yugao about everything that had happened without revealing things that she really couldn’t explain. So Sakura shook her head and busied herself with drinking more of the sake.

 

“It was nothing, that’s not what I’m upset about,” Sakura said and really she wasn’t lying. She finished the bottle and they moved to the second one without saying anything.

 

“Well? Will I have to torture it out of you then?” Yugao smirked amusedly at her and Sakura scoffed. As if anyone could get anything out of her through torture. Yugao must have read her expression correctly because she laughed and snatched the bottle from Sakura to take some for herself. “Go on, Wolfie-chan, tell senpai everything.”

 

Sakura sighed and pouted, sad that she couldn’t keep living in the nice, comfortable land of denial and compartmentalization anymore.

 

“Neji broke up with me,” she said at last and Yugao winced with a grimace. 

 

“Oof,” Yugao said, making Sakura huff an amused breath.

 

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. We weren’t serious but… it was nice, you know?”

 

Sakura stole the bottle from Yugao to thoroughly indulge herself.

 

“Yeah, I know.” Yugao nodded, looking as if she was thinking of something about the past. “It was like that when I stopped things with Kakashi-senpai. And Tenzou too, now that I think about it.”

 

Sakura choked on the sake. 

 

For a while she just sat there on the sofa, coughing up a storm as her cheeks got progressively hotter and her eyes watered. 

 

“What?!” Sakura exclaimed when she caught her breath and Yugao simply laughed and shrugged. “I—Just, what?! I don’t even know where to begin.”

 

“It wasn’t anything serious,” Yugao teased, her eyes sparkling playfully. “Kakashi-senpai was all about the funny business and Tenzou… well, he got me, you know?”

 

Sakura stared wide eyed at her senpai and nodded her head slowly, trying to let her heart go back to its normal rhythm. 

 

“So… Kakashi, huh?” Sakura asked, raising her eyebrows at Yugao. “How was that?”

 

The flush that blossomed on Yugao’s pale cheeks did something funny to Sakura’s belly.

 

“Intense,” Yugao answered finally, “but we didn’t get it on for long because I-well, I fell in love.”

 

“With Kakashi?” Sakura asked, half-horrified and half-curious. The feeling of jealousy smacked her suddenly on the face and almost took her breath away. Sakura had felt like this before with Sasuke and Ino but this time, thankfully, none of the aggression was aimed at Yugao, just… Sakura felt jealous of the fact that she had experienced that type of closeness with the man when Sakura herself couldn’t stop thinking about it ever since she had come back from a mission where his lips, his scent, his touch— 

 

The box inside her head rattled and Inner gave it a firm kick until it quieted.

 

“God, no,” Yugao laughed and Sakura wanted to kick herself for feeling so relieved, “Hayate. He was my kendo instructor in ANBU. The love of my life, really. And then came Tenzou.”

 

“So~” Sakura wiggled her eyebrows at her senpai and giggled when the woman laughed. “You were smashing boots with our most esteemed captain all this time?”

 

“Oh, god, don’t say it like that, Sakura,” Yugao laughed and the two of them took a minute to drink some more. A fond look overcame Yugao’s face then and she smiled a bit. “We helped each other get over the people we loved but couldn’t be with.”

 

Oh. That was surprisingly sad and sweet at the same time. Sakura wanted to ask more about it but didn’t feel it would be right to pry into their business like that, especially since Tenzou wasn’t there to consent to her knowing things and Yugao was probably drunk enough to tell. Sakura grabbed her senpai’s hand and squeezed it.

 

“When did the two of you end things?” Sakura asked, hoping this wasn’t some boundary she was crossing.

 

“Two months ago, actually,” Yugao answered unconcernedly and shrugged when Sakura winced.

 

“That soon,” Sakura whispered. “Is it hard being on the same team?”

 

“Not at all,” Yugao smiled. “We’re friends and we’ve been teammates for a long while. Nothing could change that.”

 

Sakura nodded and thought about that. It was quite common, really, for teammates to get together like that. The kind of bonds forged with blood and sacrifice were hard to let go of and the adrenaline in the battlefield was a great aphrodisiac. Sakura was just surprised she hadn’t noticed any of it going on. She wondered what else she had missed.

 

They drank a while more before Sakura realised that they had almost finished with three bottles of sake and Tsunade would be pissed if the only thing left to drink in the house was the stupidly expensive brand she kept around for celebrations. When she told Yugao that, the woman quickly got up to head out.

 

They put themselves back together in their ANBU uniforms and Sakura went without the genjutsu in her hair, uncaring that people around the village saw her now that her involvement in ANBU had gotten out. It’s not like Kakashi or Yugao kept their hair hidden, anyway. 

 

They walked arm in arm, each trying to keep the other upright as Sakura stuck her mask to the side of her head with chakra so she could smoke. She got a few teasing remarks about it from Yugao but the two of them walked through the training fields to the store at the edge of the village slowly and enjoying the cool autumn air.

 

“Are you going to tell me about Neji, then?” Yugao asked after Sakura had gotten a few drags in. Sakura hummed noncommittally and Yugao snorted. “You know, you don’t need to be so closed off about your romantic life like that. At least not with us.”

 

“I’m not closed off!” Sakura exclaimed and Yugao shot her a look that said really?  

 

Sakura frowned in thought and sucked anxiously on her cigarette. She guessed she hadn’t made a point to announce things like Ino usually did with her and Tenten. She liked to think it was because she didn’t really care that much about the romantic aspect of her life but a part of her knew that was a lie.

 

The thing was Sakura didn’t want people to think that’s all she cared about. Like if she said something about who she was going out with it would suddenly revert her back to the lovesick idiot she was at twelve. It was a stupid thing to believe in but it was true all the same. Sakura glared at Yugao for making her realise this about herself and snorted when the woman raised her eyebrows in triumph. Bitch. 

 

“I feel selfish,” Sakura sighed, resigned that she would have to talk about it. “I didn’t want to end things with him even though I knew we didn’t have a future, all because I don’t want to be completely alone.

 

“And you want to know what’s worse? I care about him, okay? I want him to be able to be with someone who loves him and cherishes him and I know that someone won’t be me. I can’t be that person. It’s fucking pointless to even want that in this life we lead but—” Sakura cut herself off and took a deep breath before exhaling harshly. 

 

“But you still want that, just not with him,” Yugao finished for her, her voice impossibly soft. Sakura shrugged as she took a calming drag and watched the smoke rise. They could see the store in the distance when Yugao stopped her and turned her around by the shoulders. “It’s not stupid.”

 

Sakura scoffed.

 

“It’s not stupid and it’s not pointless, Sakura,” Yugao said more firmly, this time even going as far as shaking Sakura a bit. “I know you had a bad go at it but love is one of the things that makes us stronger. You can’t go giving up on it, especially because you’re an amazing ninja and you’ll probably live a ridiculously long life compared to others.”

 

“We don’t exactly have excellent life expectancy, senpai,” Sakura said around the cigarette in her mouth but almost dropped it when Yugao shook her again.

 

“Stop being obtuse, it doesn’t suit you!” Yugao let go with one hand to flick Sakura in her forehead. “With this and your medical ninjutsu abilities do you really think you’ll die young, Wolfie-chan? Because if you do, you’re a fool.”

 

Sakura narrowed her eyes in irritation at being shaken around and assaulted but Yugao was unyielding. Sakura sighed and nodded her head in acceptance. The bitch was right. 

 

“Good. Now remember this because it’s important.” Yugao caught her eyes and Sakura couldn’t look away when she saw the way they were shining with the beginnings of tears. “I lost the love of my life four years ago. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.”

 

Sakura’s eyes widened at the emotion in her senpai’s voice and face. The two of them had definitely had too much to drink. It wasn’t always that Yugao brought up Hayate like that.

 

“Sakura, I don’t regret a single part of it. I loved him with all my heart, I felt the love he had for me in my bones and it was beautiful. Once you get to experience that, you’ll see what I mean.” Yugao’s words weren’t delivered in a way that would make Sakura feel like a child as it would have if she heard it from someone else. Instead, Sakura had to fight the urge to hug the woman.

 

“I don’t want to waste any more of my time looking for it and losing sight of who I am,” Sakura whispered, the words coming out of her without her consent but she felt no regret for them.

 

“You don’t have to. It will come to you naturally, I’m positive , ” Yugao said with such assuredness that Sakura didn’t find it in her to not believe it. The woman smiled reassuringly at her and squeezed her shoulders before letting go. “You just need to keep your eyes opened so that when it comes, you don’t let it go.”

 

And with that they continued on their way to Unmei-baasan’s store while Sakura finished her cigarette. 

 

Sakura replayed Yugao’s words in her head as they bought what they needed before making their way back to the Senju Estate. She had told Ino a few years ago that the notion that love cured all was that of little girls. She still believed in that, love couldn’t fix everything wrong and even when there was plenty of love, things could still fall apart like they had for Yugao and Hayate.

 

But she had never considered the fact that having found someone to love would make the pain that would inevitably come in the end worth it. Wasn’t that life? They all knew that they would die and it would undoubtedly end in tragedy and heartache. Sakura was still a firm believer that she would die on the battlefield even with the Byakugou seal and that was how she wanted it to be. But still…

 

Wasn’t it better that she enjoy every single thing life had to offer before then? If she found love, wouldn’t it be better to hold on to it as tight as she could rather than run from it because she was scared of getting hurt? Sakura put that thought in the back of her mind but still, she wondered.

 

When they got back to Sakura’s home, they bumped into Tsunade in the kitchen. She looked at Sakura and Yugao with a raised eyebrow until her eyes caught on the bags in their hands.

 

“Are you throwing a party?” Tsunade asked sarcastically and Sakura snorted.

 

“Neji broke up with her,” Yugao offered and Sakura threw a glare in her direction for her efforts. Tsunade hummed.

 

“Was that why you were bothering my guards earlier?” Tsunade teased but Sakura could see that she was being searched for any signs of hurt and need for comfort. Sakura gave her shishou a wide reassuring grin.

 

“I just wanted to keep them on their toes, Shishou.” 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

The day after, Tsunade told her that a meeting would happen in their house. As in, Tsunade suddenly appeared with Shizune, Genma, Yugao and Kakashi saying that Tenzou was getting the members of their council so they could have a meeting. While Sakura was having a late dinner. In her loungewear. 

 

Sakura stopped chewing and just watched as they all went past her to the living room. She sighed, put her chopsticks down and followed them, trying to decide if she should go change but decided against it in the end. They were the ones in her living room at half past ten at night on a Monday. They could very well deal with her in her dark green house yukata. Although, she would have been more comfortable if it wasn’t that short. Still. Whatever.

 

Sakura crossed her arms as she eyed her friends and Tsunade. 

 

“What’s this about?” If Team Ro was there and they were getting the council… Were they finally bringing the team into the fold? Sakura exchanged glances with Tsunade and refrained from looking at Kakashi.

 

“We have some things to decide and I think it’s better if we keep Team Ro in the know.” Tsunade sat in one of their armchairs while Shizune stood behind her, Kakashi leaned against the far wall and Genma and Yugao sat on the couch. 

 

Sakura sat on the arm Genma was closest to and rubbed the scar on her eyebrow absentmindedly.

 

“And Keiichi?” The man wasn’t there and Tsunade hadn’t mentioned him so she could only assume he wasn’t to be invited into the fold.

 

“I’ll schedule for him to teach some more workshops whenever needed. I don’t trust his loyalty to the Hyuga’s,” Tsunade said simply, making Sakura nod. 

 

She got it, really. While she was sure Keiichi would gladly give his life for her like every member of Team Ro, she still wasn’t sure it would be the same if it came to protect someone from the main branch. Sakura sighed imperceptibly and eyed Kakashi for the first time that night.

 

She was surprised to see his gaze was already on her, his eye following the motion of her finger scratching at her scar. Sakura dropped her hand and his eye snapped to hers. The grey of his eye seemed darker that night, maybe because of the relatively dim lighted room, she wasn’t sure, but it still induced a shiver which she hurried to suppress

 

Kakashi diverted his gaze before she could think more of it.

 

They hadn’t spoken since he left her bed while she was still asleep the day before and Sakura was scared he would pull completely away and disappear on her. She wasn’t sure what exactly had happened that night but she wasn’t about to question the best night of sleep she had in weeks. 

 

Sakura felt the heavy weight of Genma and Yugao’s looks, alternating between her and Kakashi and probably noticing they had chosen opposite sides of the room to be in. Of course, Toshio had told them about the fight he had witnessed and the two of them were curious about what had happened. Well, they were about to find out.

 

While they waited, Sakura took the time to notice the loaded looks Shizune and Genma exchanged and raised her eyebrow at Yugao to see if the woman saw it too. Her senpai smirked slightly at her and it was all the confirmation Sakura needed. She narrowed her eyes, the earlier thought she had in the day returning to her. Just how much hadn’t she seen and wasn’t in the know?

 

Tenzou arrived just outside the door, leading the council they created through a tunnel underground that opened up into their foyer. Shikaku, Inoichi and Ibiki all filed into the room behind him and took their place around the room. Shikaku and Inoichi shared the other sofa while Tenzou leaned against the wall next to Kakashi, and Ibiki against the wall nearest Sakura.

 

“Well, now that you’re all here we can begin,” Tsunade said, leaning back against her armchair. “First, let’s all catch Team Ro up with what we found out and then we can proceed to our real discussion for today.”

 

Tsunade explained everything that had happened with the Uchiha clan, the situation with Itachi, their plans to capture Danzo and dismantle Root, and to deal with the Elders' involvement. Team Ro waited in stunned silence for her to finish and Genma was the first one who spoke.

 

“Did you know Itachi…” he asked, looking at Kakashi who shook his head.

 

“I found out a few nights ago.” Kakashi ran his hand through his hair in frustration as Genma turned his shocked stare towards Sakura and opened his mouth. Before he could say anything, Kakashi continued, “Sakura was the one who found out about it through the Sandaime’s personal journal.”

 

Hearing her name on his lips sent a jolt through Sakura’s system that she wasn’t expecting given the seriousness of the situation. She frowned at this, her gaze meeting Kakashi’s briefly before forcing herself to look back at Genma and shutting the door on the delicious feeling that wrecked down her spine at hearing her name like that. 

 

Sakura was thankfully brought out of her traitorous thoughts when Genma abruptly stood up. He turned to grab her arm and Sakura’s whole body tensed up in response without her consent. She forced herself to relax when he hugged her. It was a hug that was more him trying to squeeze the life out of her other than anything but it was a hug nonetheless.

 

“That day…” Genma muttered on the top of her head. “That day at the bar, this was what you were talking about, wasn’t it? You’ve known all this time and… Goddamn it, Princess, I’m sorry you had to deal with this alone.”

 

Sakura’s eyes widened as her face was smashed on his shoulder. In no time, Yugao had joined in on the hug from behind her and Tenzou placed a hand on top of her head. Sakura swallowed, her throat suddenly tight.

 

“I wasn’t alone, Jiji,” she tried to force some levity to her voice but it was ruined by the need to clear her throat.

 

“Damn right she wasn’t,” Tsunade called and Team Ro seemed to reluctantly let go of her. Sakura felt strangely cold when they all went back to their positions and she couldn’t fight with the urge to look at Kakashi. His face was softer than it had been since they came back from the mission and it made Sakura’s stomach flutter uncomfortably. “We don’t have much time to be here without raising suspicions.”

 

“What’s this meeting about?” Ibiki’s raspy voice cut through the happiness inside Sakura’s chest like ice. She turned to fully face Tsunade, dread pooling in her stomach.

 

“Homura and Koharu asked for Usui to be placed in the council, officially,” Tsunade said, a furrow between her brows. Her golden gaze settled on everyone before she continued. “Do any of you have any reason to suspect he would be on Danzo’s side?”

 

“Usui practically raised us, Hokage-sama,” it was Yugao that first rose to his defence but all the other members of Team Ro chimed in in agreement.

 

“Be that as it may, it’s suspicious that the elders would recommend him for the seat,” Shikaku said, his hands fiddling with a smoke he wouldn’t dare light inside Tsunade’s living room.

 

“Especially since now they’re technically outnumbered inside the council,” Inoichi agreed, scratching at his chin. “If the ANBU commander is on their side, then they’d be able to come with a tie at the least.”

 

Sakura frowned, thinking this through carefully. She ran through every memory inside her head with Inner’s help, deciphering Toshio’s mannerisms and actions, the way he spoke and reacted to the things around him. How he treated his operatives. Sakura already knew deep down the answer to this.

 

“Usui Toshio is perhaps one of the most loyal ninja to Konoha,” Sakura said, capturing the room’s attention. “I would bet my life he knows something about Danzo and is strictly against it.”

 

She felt everyone’s heavy gaze on her. Tsunade leaned her elbows on the arms of the chair and crossed her fingers beneath her chin.

 

“What do you know?” she asked.

 

“Think about it. After the Kyuubi’s attack, Toshio, a recently widowed man, made sure that all of the orphan children under his care were taken care of. He didn’t let any of his fall through the cracks. I think that’s because he knew what would happen if he let them out of his sight.” Sakura took a deep breath, looked at all of Team Ro before continuing. “He didn’t just draft them deeper into ANBU and housed them in the barracks either. He made sure they had all signed contracts to own units in the new buildings, which would take them out of the shadows permanently. They wouldn’t be able to go missing suddenly without at least someone noticing and raising a flag.”

 

Sakura watched as everyone considered her points for a few beats before she continued. 

 

“There’s also how he treated me when I was first drafted into ANBU, that year that I wasn’t a fully fledged operative yet.” Sakura gave her shishou a little smirk. “He wanted to go over you the day he asked me to sign the contract with them and I think it’s because he didn’t trust you. That means, he didn’t trust the Hokage. Don’t you think that implies he would have known of a Hokage that had royally fucked up?”

 

Sakura knew she was crossing a line disrespecting their ancestors like that but she hadn’t been taught how to back down. Inoichi seemed ready to interfere but Tsunade raised a hand.

 

“Let her continue,” she barked, paying complete attention to Sakura.

 

“There’s also something that always stuck to me. The medical-ninjutsu workshops we started a few years ago was a draft he had during the Yondaime’s era. He said every single Hokage had rejected it before you came along.” Sakura’s smile was growing bigger now, she was absolutely certain she was right. “Toshio didn’t have another reason for putting me in his ranks other than to make sure his operatives stayed alive. That’s the same reason he drafted that workshop idea and now wants to incorporate the training in the ANBU training regime. He cares about his operatives, I’m absolutely certain he would stand on our side.”

 

There were a few beats of silence as people considered her points and then Tsunade nodded.

 

“I trust your judgement.” She nodded again, her voice final. “This means we have the upper hand, then. The Elders’ plan will backfire.”

 

“We could use this to our advantage,” Shikaku said, fingers still playing with his unlit cigarette. “We can make them believe the Commander is on their side and give them that false sense of security while we plan our moment to strike.”

 

Sakura hummed in agreement, she was liking this plan already.

 

“When it goes to vote, only Shikaku and Inoichi should vote not to put him there,” Sakura said slowly, her mind working in overdrive to decide what’s the best course of action. “The two of you were the ones who the Elders suspected that shishou had ulterior motives when appointed as councilmembers. They already think Ibiki was put there solely to throw the Hyugas off your scent, if we play this right, we can make them think they would have both Toshio and Ibiki on their side.”

 

Ibiki barked a laugh and Tsunade shot her one of her fierce smiles.

 

“I like the way you think, girl,” Ibiki said, his face twisted into a smile that sent shivers down Sakura’s spine. “Playing mind games with fools is always entertaining.” 

 

Sakura couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her at that. She let Inner project some of the danger she held inside herself when she smirked at him and it only made his smile grow.

 

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Tsunade sighed, running a hand through her bangs restlessly. “Why would they even think he’s someone they could have on their side?”

 

“The way you’re perceived dictates how free you are to act on your own beliefs,” Kakashi said in a way that made Sakura believe he had heard that sentence many times before. “Usui always knew how to play the game, that’s how he stayed the ANBU Commander through three different Hokage. At this point, I believe the Elders assumed he knew what had happened and didn’t care or had been successfully manipulated.”

 

“They think they can manipulate him again,” Sakura said, nodding to herself. “Just like they thought they could manipulate you, Shishou.”

 

Tsunade scoffed at the absurdity of it and Sakura agreed with the sentiment. Those old fools had certainly made their bed and Sakura would make sure they laid in it.

Notes:

Lots and lots of things to discuss!!! Oof, sorry in advance.

First of all, please take a look at the end of chapter 37 to see the newest fanart Daughter of Fire has!!! I linked her profile there but you can find her at preeshera for her personal blog and preeshera-art over on Tumblr! I would really appreciate it if you guys took some time to give her some love, maybe take the time you guys would use to review this chapter and go over on Tumblr to reblog her art? I know sometimes we just don't have the time. Over on Instagram there's a speed painting (is that what it's called? lol i dunno) of the art for chapter 37. I already said this to you when you surprised me with this amazing art but thank you so so much, bro, you have no idea how happy it makes me when my art inspires others to create art.

Welcome, welcome to all the new readers!!! I saw MANY comments saying you guys binge read this in like??? A day??? Two??? Oh wow! You guys are insane, thank you so much for all the love, I love y'all ;-; I'm so happy to share this wild ride with you guys, really tysm for all the support <3 We still have a long way to go, oops

This chapter was very heavy on the emotional part but I wanted to talk about the end scene, actually. This was always my plan for the Commander and I'm so glad I finally got to put it very explicitly just what he was up to all of these chapters. I hope you can see in my writing all of these nuances to his character, I know in the beginning most of you were very sus of him but that was also my intention hahah “The way you’re perceived dictates how free you are to act on your own beliefs,” is a sentence that I find describes Toshio well and Kakashi too (duh, ofc, he learned it from Usui) and it's FINALLY out there in the open lmfao. You guys know by now that I'm very reluctant when it comes to OC's but I felt like his character (not only the ANBU Commander as the person behind the dog mask and cape that we see in the anime but also a character that was old enough to experience everything that happened years before but smart enough to stay alive) was sorely missed in canon. I mean, yeah it makes sense that ninja don't live to see old age and the kyuubi attack killed MANY of the old guard but... what about shinobi like Unmei-san that had an injury that put them out of action? What about the shinobi that weren't in the village during the attack? What about smart, slippery fuckers like Usui that managed to stay on top and do what was necessary despite bureaucracy and wasn't completely bound by the system enough to see that the Hokage was a figure and not a god?

Anyway.

Ooh did you guys pay attention to the meditation scene? It's kinda important bc I made some changes to how the Byakugou seal works. All explained canonically with the good ol' "it's different for everyone," bs bc well... isn't it? I mainly made those tiny changes because: 1. I wanted to; 2. There's really a suspicious lack of information when it comes to the seal (hmmm... almost as if Kishi-sensei didn't bother with it?....) and 3. I don't like that out of the Sannin, Tsunade is the only one that has real consequences to her god-like abilities. Jiraiya gets ugly when he uses the sage mode and Orochimaru is... evil? But for Tsunade it's just like: "oh lol ur gonna die early :)" Yeah, I call bullshit.

On the topic of the Sannin and tying back to what I was saying before, I view Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Usui and Sakumo kind of like the old guard, (I'm saying just those five bc they will be the more important in this series but there's ofc many more like Might Dai) and imo it's basically like this: Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya never loved Konoha enough to stay. Sure, they all had their reasons to leave but in the end that's what it boils down to. Imo, ofc. Sakumo was probably the one who loved Konoha the most and having that love met with hate was what finished breaking him in the end. And Usui... I pictured a lot of Kakashi and Sakura in Usui. He loves Konoha with all of his being but he's not above doing what's necessary to keep that love alive even if it means going against orders. He was also the one left behind, a bit like Kakashi and Sakura. I could write a lot on Sakumo's relationship with the Sannin and Usui but... I only have like 600 characters left. Lol. Sorry.

Love y'all, please don't hate me for the ridiculously long AN! ;-;

Chapter 40: Old Habits Die Hard

Notes:

Hello, lovelies <3

This has been such a crazy week ;-; Thank you so much for all the love <3

Please, remember that this fic is rated E lol.... I felt this chapter was kind of filler-y and I'm not sure I'm completely satisfied with it but I'm gonna go ahead and trust my friends and post this as it is. Be gentle Y-Y

It was two days later on a Wednesday that Genma kidnapped Sakura during her lunch break again. This time he had managed to find her only after she had already left the café with Ino and was on her way back to the Hokage Tower. Ino had complained, loudly, that he was encroaching on her time but Genma only conceded defeat when Sakura promised she’d meet him at two-thirty in training ground sixty-seven. 

 

Between her best friends, Sakura would have a hard time explaining to Tsunade why she kept disappearing after her lunch break.

 

Her schedule had calmed considerably as the village settled back into itself, now completely healed from the Konoha Crush. Sakura was taking more missions alone as a jounin than with Team Ro since the Elders had thrown their fit and she had been placed in the normal jounin mission roster but now she had a lot more downtime. 

 

The minimum amount of time before a shinobi would be sent off was three days for short missions and a week for missions that lasted longer than eight days. That being said, there hadn’t been a need lately for a shinobi to be sent out within the minimum amount of time off and Sakura usually took a mission every few weeks regardless if it was a long one or not.

 

That meant that she had begun spending much more time working at the office with Tsunade or overseeing the workshops in ANBU that were now mainly given by the older students that had the best progress. 

 

Ino’s mandatory monthly meeting with her was a nice constant but the girl had been conspiring with Tenten and even shy Hinata to get her away from the Tower more often, especially since Sakura came back from this mission with the Akatsuki.  

 

Sakura wasn’t exactly complaining, really, but she was sure Tsunade would at some point and would demand Sakura have a clear schedule to avoid her disappearing when she was needed.

 

Sakura made her way to training ground sixty-seven slowly, not wanting to be the first there. She grabbed a hot chocolate from a café on her way there and warmed her hands on it. The weather in Konoha, while milder than the rest of Fire Country as it was so far down south, was getting colder. Not enough for her to put on warmer clothes yet, but rainy days such as that particular Wednesday called for something warmer. 

 

It probably wasn’t the best idea to be drinking hot chocolate before a training session but Sakura was only planning on sparring lightly since she had once again already completed her training session for the day. 

 

Training grounds sixty-seven was one of the best in ANBU. It had a lake with a small waterfall so they could practice fighting in the water, a tightly packed forest where it neared the barrier and nice open fields. Literally everything someone needed to do some extensive training. 

 

Genma and Asuma were already sparring next to the lake when she got there so Sakura simply went to sit beneath the shade of a tree a bit away from them, enjoying her hot chocolate. 

 

The sun hadn’t decided to completely show itself that day and while it was relatively hot for anyone practising, Sakura folded into herself when a breeze went through her hair.

 

She drank her hot chocolate and focused on meditating while the sounds of their match continued. About an hour must have passed before she felt someone sit down next to her. 

 

“Sorry to disturb,” Asuma said as he leaned back against the tree Sakura was sitting at. Sakura blinked at him in surprise and turned to see what Genma was doing.

 

“When did he get here?” Sakura muttered to herself when she saw that Genma was now sparring with Kakashi, the two of them using only taijutsu. Asuma chuckled.

 

“Just now.” He fished inside his flak jacket for his pack of cigarettes. “He even said hi to you.”

 

Feeling slightly bad for having been so concentrated on her meditation she left him hanging, Sakura accepted the cigarette Asuma offered and bent forward to let him light it for her. The two of them smoked in companionable silence and made casual comments about Kakashi’s and Genma’s fight. 

 

“So, how are things with Kurenai?” Sakura asked after she took another drag of her cigarette. Asuma startled at the sudden change of subject and a panicked look crossed over his face making Sakura narrow her eyes at him. “What happened?”

 

“Nothing!” Asuma spluttered and had to hurry to catch his cigarette before it fell. He scratched the back of his head with his other hand and shot Sakura a sheepish look. “Everything is good. It’s great.”

 

Sakura raised her eyebrows and watched closely as Asuma focused his gaze on the half smoked cigarette on his hand. To be fair, he didn’t look like something was wrong despite his fumbling for words. Still, something had happened and Sakura just had to wait for him to get comfortable enough to speak about it.

 

“I’m trying to quit,” Asuma said quietly, still looking at the cigarette. 

 

Since he didn’t want to talk about what had happened, Sakura figured she wouldn’t let her friend wallow in the weird mood that seemed to have come over him suddenly. She scoffed loudly and punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

 

“Ow, what the hell !” Asuma turned surprised eyes at her when his cigarette went flying then laughed incredulously. 

 

“You get me addicted to it and then suddenly you want to quit?” Sakura punched him again but this time didn’t hit as he got up to avoid her. Sakura followed him with another punch and laughed when he did. 

 

“Oi, are you trying to kill the old man, Pinky?” Genma called and Sakura turned with her hands on her hips towards where he and Kakashi had stopped their sparring.

 

“You ladies can go rest,” Sakura cracked her fingers and grinned at Asuma who laughed but still took a few steps away from her, “I have a score to settle with this one.”

 

The fight that ensued was more of a brawl than anything, both Sakura and Asuma laughing too much for it to be anything close to serious. In the end, Sakura managed to smush his face to the ground and twist his arm until he tapped out. 

 

Kakashi and Genma were doing weight training when they joined them beneath the shade of the trees they had been sitting under before. Sakura manhandled Asuma until she found his pack of cigarettes and stole them for herself.

 

“I’m taking these, asshole,” she said, jokingly driving an elbow on Asuma’s ribs when he laughed.

 

“Your elbows are sharp , woman,” he complained as they sat down to drink from their bottles. 

 

“Now imagine going to sleep next to that,” Genma joined in, throwing an arm around Sakura’s shoulders which she dodged before glaring playfully at him. “I woke up so many times with a black eye or a bruised rib.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Kakashi breathed and Sakura gasped indignantly at him, not believing he would actually jump in on the teasing like that. He simply shot her a crinkled eye and scratched the back of his head. “Maa, Sakura-chan, you know I can’t lie to my best friends.”

 

He must have noticed the murderous look on Sakura’s face because Kakashi then dragged his mask down, ostensibly to take a drink from his water bottle. Sakura wasn’t being fooled by his innocent look. 

 

“You can’t distract me with your face, idiot,” Sakura hissed and narrowed her eyes at him but it didn’t matter because she could already feel her cheeks reddening. She had forgotten how unfairly pretty he was. 

 

“Princess, Hatake could distract anyone with his face,” Genma lamented, making them all break into laughter and Sakura was slightly mollified to see there was pink on Kakashi’s exposed cheeks that he failed to cover fast enough.

 

The four of them entered the Rusty Kunai a few hours later and sat down at their usual booth by the back. Since ninja didn’t exactly live by standard work hours, it was only marginally less busy on a weekday. The only difference being that during the weekend it was filled mostly with career genin and people who worked either at the Academy or the Hokage Tower. 

 

Many were outside the village, though, so even though there were quite a few jounin and chunin around, their friends were nowhere to be seen. 

 

“Okay, so for Kakashi’s birthday,” Sakura started once they all had their drinks. “I managed to check the mission roster and according to it, in about a week everyone should be back at the village.”

 

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Kakashi sighed while he drank through his mask and shot Sakura a long suffering stare. Sakura slapped him on the shoulder lightly.

 

“This isn’t about you!” She flushed when Genma and Asuma laughed while Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her. “So what you don’t want to celebrate your birthday, we do. Don’t you think we deserve to grab every chance of celebration we have?”

 

This seemed to turn the mood considerably darker and Sakura almost regretted it. The truth was, she understood just a little too much how Kakashi felt about his birthday. It was an odd time and it felt somehow wrong to celebrate without so many important people there. For Kakashi, it was his team and his dad and for Sakura, well. No matter how she had grown used to not talking to her parents, her birthday was the one time of the year that she really felt their absence. 

 

Still, Kakashi had been allowed to stay locked within his comfort zone way too much. He had people who cared about him, people who were like his family, pack. She had to remind him of this from time to time. 

 

“Fine,” Kakashi acquiesced before gulping the rest of his drink down. “But I’m not paying for anything and I can leave whenever I want.”

 

“You can leave after four hours,” Sakura countered. Kakashi narrowed his eye.

 

“Two.”

 

“Three.”

 

“ Fine,” Kakashi tried to glare at her but his face turned affectionate when he huffed a laugh. “You’re impossible.”

 

“I know,” Sakura said cheerfully.

 

“Alright, you two, enough flirting,” Genma teased his eyebrow wiggling teasingly. Sakura flushed and she didn’t dare turn to look at Kakashi but before either of them could reply, Genma continued, “Did you see who just came in?”

 

Sakura’s eyes immediately scanned the room and the warmth from her blush immediately dissipated as she paled. 

 

“Oh no,” Sakura groaned, letting her head fall on her hands. “Not him, fuck.”

 

“Who is it?” Asuma asked curiously and Genma simply laughed.

 

“He’s… a colleague,” Sakura answered to the others’ bewildered faces as Genma continued to cackle like a mad man.

 

“And ex- lover, ” he added, dodging the napkin Sakura threw at him. 

 

“Don’t say that word, it’s weird, ” Sakura whined into her cup as Asuma joined Genma’s laugh.

 

“ And student,” Genma laughed harder at the murderous look she sent him.

 

“He was only my student for like one workshop and that was after we fucked,” Sakura rectified.

 

Asuma whistled and raised his eyebrows while Kakashi choked slightly on his drink. Genma simply laughed louder.

 

“Since you both don’t know Sakura as well as I do, I have to warn you. Sakura swears more than I do and became really well acquainted with some of our shadow members.” Genma spread his hand around while he addressed the others and Sakura kicked his shin beneath the table.

 

“Shut up, Jiji!” she hissed. Asuma had gone back to laughing while Kakashi shifted in his seat. Sakura flushed but laughed all the same, the drinks already getting to her. “There were only three guys in ANBU, okay? And I learned my lesson after Ox over there.”

 

“What happened?” Asuma asked, lighting a cigarette before he took a sip of his cup, completely amused.

 

“Tell him or I will,” Genma threatened, wiggling his eyebrows at her. Sakura sighed, rolled her eyes and laughed slightly.

 

“We went on a joint mission and decided to all have dinner at the mess hall when we came back. You know, one thing led to another, he was a fairly decent guy, I thought why the fuck not.” Sakura laughed a bit and took a big gulp of her drink, completely aware of Kakashi’s gaze on her as Genma laughed up a storm. “The next day he shows up in my workshop with flowers.”

 

Sakura put her head on her hand and nodded slightly while Asuma muttered, “oh no.”

 

“Oh, yes.” She snickered, remembering how funny he had looked when she freaked out that day. “I poached him off to Keiichi immediately, had to have a really unnecessary conversation about how one night stands work and tried to avoid him.”

 

“Tried being the keyword here,” Genma jumped in as Asuma chuckled. “The poor sap is completely in love with Sakura, every time he sees her he tries to win her back.”

 

“It was over six months ago! ” Sakura complained, throwing her hands in the air as her friends laughed. “I don’t know why he just doesn’t get over it already.”

 

“That’s because you’re irresistible, baby,” Genma grinned at her from across the table and Sakura scoffed. His eyes shifted towards where Ox was standing at a table nearby and suddenly widened. “Oh shit, he’s coming this way. He’ll definitely see you.”

 

Sakura groaned but then widened her eyes when Kakashi abruptly got up from their booth.

 

“What are you doing? He’s gonna see me , you idiot!” she hissed at him, trying to slide down the bench. Kakashi just stared at her with a bland smile behind his mask.

 

“I’m just going to get our next round, Sakura-chan,” he said. “I’m sure you can handle this.”

 

And then he left but the damage was already done. Ox’s attention had clearly been drawn to their table by Kakashi getting up and now he was making a straight line towards them.

 

“Sakura-sensei, I didn’t expect to see you here!” he said cheerfully, his mask stuck to his short brown hair showing begrudgingly handsome features. “Can I get you a drink?”

 

Genma hid a snicker and Asuma simply offered her a cigarette which she gladly accepted.

 

“Ah, sorry Ox, I’m with my friends tonight,” Sakura said, leaning forward slightly so Asuma could light her cig. Before she could, Ox sat down next to her and placed his lighter towards the tip of her cigarette.

 

“Here, let me,” he said in what could only account as a bedroom voice. Sakura accepted it while mentally screaming inside. When the tip finally caught on, Sakura leaned back as far as she could to put some distance between them, shooting Genma and Asuma pleading glances.

 

“There’s actually someone in that seat already, kid,” Genma said, smirking around his senbon. 

 

“That’s okay, I’m sure he can grab a chair,” Ox waved a gloved hand in the air. 

 

Well, Sakura had to give it to him, the guy had balls. She sucked on her cigarette and exchanged annoyed looks with Genma. No matter how much fun he had at her expense, he was already reaching his breaking point with the guy. 

 

Asuma seemed equally irritated, puffing his cigarette to the side before his eyes caught something near Ox. He chuckled, taking a cheerful drag of his cigarette before leaning back.

 

“You’re in my seat.” 

 

Kakashi’s voice wasn’t the carefree tone he usually had, it was Hound-taichou’s voice and it was instantaneous the reaction it had on Ox. Kakashi placed their drinks on the table and looked calmly at the man, all traces of his earlier smile gone. Sakura suppressed a shiver. 

 

Ox immediately got up, moving so fast Sakura thought he was going to trip.

 

“O-of course, Hound-taichou!” the man stuttered and backed away slightly. “I had no idea it was your seat, I—”

 

He cut himself off when Kakashi sat back down. He slid closer to Sakura and placed both his arms on the back of the booth. He shared a look with Sakura and despite the harsh aura he was projecting, she could see his eye was dancing with amusement. Sakura exhaled a plume of smoke while tilting her head away from his and bit her lip to keep her laugh at bay.

 

Kakashi took the cigarette from her fingers and she thought at first that he was going to put it away but he didn’t. Instead, Kakashi used his ring finger to lower his mask and placed the cigarette between his lips, taking a deep drag from it.

 

He exhaled the smoke towards Ox.

 

“You’re still here?” Kakashi asked, making Ox stutter more apologies as he went back to his table. Sakura rolled her eyes. Men. 

 

Genma and Asuma immediately started laughing, the alcohol making them all looser and Sakura couldn’t help but join in even if she thought it was ridiculous that Ox would only leave when another man came. She took her drink from where Kakashi had placed it and took a hearty gulp of it before settling back. 

 

Kakashi was so close to her, she could feel his chest vibrating with laughter through her shoulder and his leg pressed against hers. She fought the urge to take off her haori.

 

“You stole my cigarette,” Sakura said, watching without actually meaning to the way Kakashi’s cheeks hollowed while he took another drag. She took it from his mouth when he smirked.

 

“Maa, Sakura-sensei,” Kakashi chuckled. “Don’t be greedy. ”

 

Sakura choked while inhaling the next drag and glared at him when he raised an eyebrow at her. Fuckin bastard. She forcibly put his mask back, the alcohol making her bolder, and then promptly changed the subject. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura sighed as the hot water beat down her back. She wasn’t sure why she was so tense but she knew that if she didn’t do anything in her power to relax, she wouldn’t be doing any sleeping that night. She had drunk a lot during their post-training bar session and it had admittedly gotten her feeling pretty heavy. The hot water had done a good job of leaving her slightly pliant but she still felt restless. 

 

Maybe a bath would do her good.

 

She changed the settings to start filling up the tub and plugged the drain before sitting down and letting the water fill around her. It had been five days since she had last had a decent night of sleep, next to Kakashi enveloped by his scent and warmth. 

 

Sakura leaned her head against the lid of the tub and sighed. 

 

This was really becoming troublesome. She got that her body had gotten used to having him around and having him there with her at night made her feel safe and allowed her overactive mind to relax but… couldn’t her body take the fucking hint that they weren’t like that? Of course, that night had done nothing to cool down this need to be next to him.

 

He had stayed the rest of the night sitting that close to her, almost touching her with the arm resting on the back of her seat, his chest brushing her shoulder whenever he shifted or laughed and his leg firmly pressed against hers no matter what. She had caught herself thinking more than once as they shared that smoke what it would take for his lips to be on hers without the cigarette as an intermediary?

 

Despite the shocking realisation that she was attracted to all aspects of him and being quite content in their friendship, Sakura couldn’t help but remember how being kissed by Kakashi had felt like. 

 

The low timbre of his voice in her ear before he pressed a teasing kiss to the corner of her mouth, taking his time before capturing her lips with his. The thing was, Sakura could remember vividly how he had felt pressed up against her while they slept and even more, that one time she had felt his naked chest against hers. 

 

The feeling of his soft hair between her fingers as she rubbed up against him, the soft grunt he had made that night. 

 

Sakura only realised what she was doing when her finger had dipped inside her folds. 

 

She froze in the tub, blinking her eyes wide open—when had she closed them?—to stare at the ceiling of her bathroom. Was she really considering doing this? 

 

Sakura quickly shut down the water before the tub could come close to overflowing and settled back into what was supposed to be a relaxing bath. She took a few deep breaths but the mere thought of going to sleep this worked up made her hand slide back between her legs.

 

She needed an outlet for all this pent up energy. 

 

Sakura closed her eyes again and didn’t really bother working herself up anymore. She was already wet and in desperate need of release and all it had taken were a few memories of him, the bastard. If she tried hard enough, she could hear him there, laughing at her. That same delicious chuckle she could feel all night as it vibrated his chest. 

 

Sakura sighed as she dipped a finger back inside her, unnecessarily gathering her wetness before sliding back up to rub lazy circles on her clit. It was all too easy for her head to replace her hand with his, for her to remember how it had felt with his arms around her, his breath on her neck and lips taking her breath away.

 

Sakura sped up her rhythm, tightened the circles minutely as a low moan escaped her lips. Despite Kakashi having kept mostly quiet during their pretend sex, her mind was already working in overdrive, connecting the image of his body beneath hers to the grunts, sighs and slightly breathless laugh she had heard from him before.

 

If Sakura tried hard enough, she could hear him again telling her how good she was, asking her to come for him, praising her and breathing hotly beneath her ear.

 

Sakura huffed a desperate breath as her finger continued to rub tight little circles around her clit, the sheer heat between her legs starting to spread. She bit her lip to keep her moans contained, thinking back on how he had looked while taking a drag of her cigarette.

 

Sakura tipped over the edge as she pictured Kakashi like he had looked earlier, his cheeks hollowed, as he worked between her legs.

 

She gasped weakly as her orgasm rocked through her body, her mind blissfully blank for a few beats as she felt her core tightening and then the after tremors it left behind. With her hand still cupping herself, Sakura sighed, feeling her muscles relax into the warm water. She opened her eyes with difficulty and stared unseeingly at her ceiling. 

 

Well.

 

With a slightly incredulous laugh, Sakura cleaned herself up and got up from the tub, taking the plug out with her. She turned to stare at herself in the mirror while she carefully got out, her legs feeling slightly weak. She really hoped her imagination had tricked her body enough into thinking Kakashi was actually there so she could get a decent night’s sleep.

 

Sakura dried herself quickly and put on the comfiest pair of pyjamas she had. This one Yugao had also bought for her a few years back, it was the same pattern as the one she had worn the other night, pink cats on the hems, only it was a pair of pants and long-sleeved shirt and the bright pink of the cats contrasted with a soft pastel pink. It clashed horribly with her hair and made her look like a giant stick of cotton candy but it was warm and worn and she loved it. 

 

Sakura breathed into her pillow, cracked her back and flopped belly up to sigh at the ceiling. She closed her eyes forcibly and tried to go through some meditation techniques. It wasn’t enough for her to be completely ready for sleep but it slowed down her heart rate at least. She contemplated after a few minutes how dangerous it would be to induce her sleep with her own chakra. 

 

She fell asleep. Kinda.

 

It was a weird space between wakefulness and unconsciousness where she was dreaming but was avidly aware of it. It was a fairly normal dream, she was in a forest she didn’t remember ever being in but where the trees felt eerily familiar. Nothing about the dream screamed unusual despite the fact that she had a few flowers in her hands which didn’t seem native from the place. 

 

Sakura had the sudden certainty that she had to do something. 

 

She started ripping the petals from the flowers, one by one and her heart rate went through the roof. She was sweating and scared for some reason and her hands kept frantically working on destroying the flower. 

 

Sakura woke with a scream lodged in her throat, sweat dampening the back of her neck.

 

She opened her eyes to watch the shadows dance across her bedroom and she knew she couldn’t stay there anymore. She quickly got up, taking the kunai she kept under her pillow with her as she opened her sliding doors to get out. The night air did wonders for her.

 

Sakura walked around aimlessly, trying to clear her head of the dream and all the unpleasant memories it had brought up. She didn’t get why the dream wasn’t a concrete memory—she had so many nightmarish ones to draw from—but it certainly opened up the floodgate that was her tightly repressed memories. 

 

The sight of too wide grins and malevolent chakra flashed in her mind and Sakura sped up.

 

She supposed it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that she ended up outside his window, kunai held loosely between her fingers. Sakura perched on his empty flowerbed and tried to tell her body to get it the fuck together and maybe go to Genma’s but the traitorous thing was immovable.

 

Kakashi’s curtains and window were open and she could tell the moment he woke up even though he didn’t make any abrupt movement at finding her outside his window in the middle of the night, armed. The bed was pushed against a wall with its headboard facing the window so she couldn’t see the look on his face but she didn’t have to.

 

He pulled the covers back on the side facing the wall.

 

Every instinct in Sakura’s body should have been telling her to not accept being caged in like that, especially after her nightmare but the voice that said safe spoke louder.

 

Sakura climbed through the window silently and quickly went over him to slide beneath the covers. Kakashi didn’t have a second pillow so she stuffed her kunai between the bed and the wall and slid as close as humanly possible towards him. The need to be closer, become one with him was so strong she almost went with it and tried to climb on top of him but somehow managed to hold back. 

 

Kakashi brought the covers over her shoulder and accepted her under his arm, her head fitting like usual on the crook of his shoulder and neck. 

 

Like this she could smell him all over and she got the weird need to smell it even deeper so she circled chakra to her nostrils like she did with her pack, now able to smell every aspect of his scent easily. Sakura breathed a sigh—of relief or pleasure she couldn’t really tell—into his undershirt and fisted her hand on top of his heart.

 

It beat steadily beneath her, sure and alive and there.

 

Sakura didn’t even remember falling asleep. She did, however, remember being woken up by a rhythmic banging. At first she thought she was still sleeping but her still enhanced senses could pick out everything around her and there was no mistaking that she was in Kakashi’s bed. 

 

He was just beginning to wake up and for a moment the two of them laid there awake but not fully committed to it. Then a particularly loud moan could be heard through the open windows.

 

“Fucking Genma,” Sakura mumbled into Kakashi’s shirt. Kakashi grumbled something that could have been a curse and Sakura tried to will her brain to work faster, to get worried about her current situation but it was so early, and she was so comfortable.

 

Sakura jolted up when she felt a burst of chakra from the other side. A familiar chakra.

 

“Shizu—” Sakura exclaimed, loudly, but was stopped by Kakashi’s hand pressing over her mouth. 

 

She stared wide eyed at him, remembering that if they could hear the other apartment, surely they could hear Sakura’s indignant screech. She slowly started tamping down on her chakra, glad that she usually kept it at half, until it was so tiny no one who hadn’t been looking for it would notice.

 

Kakashi took his hand away, his ungloved fingers lingering on her jaw as Sakura sat up fully. She turned to look at his clock but, realising she couldn’t trust it, checked the sun’s position. It was still six in the morning.

 

“When did he even have time to pick her up after we left the bar?” Sakura wondered out loud and Kakashi chuckled. 

 

“She was already here,” he said, bringing one hand beneath his head to look at her better and the other scratched slightly on his covered cheek. 

 

“Already, he—” Sakura gasped, “they’re a thing?”

 

Kakashi nodded slightly, looking bewilderedly at her. He looked delicious, to put it lightly, with his messy hair, unfairly sculpted biceps exposed and one sleepy eye opened. Sakura didn’t linger on the sight and simply pouted. 

 

“He didn’t tell me.” She didn’t know if she was annoyed or hurt but it certainly wasn’t a nice feeling. 

 

Kakashi hummed in understanding, his eye drooping as he stifled a yawn behind his mask. Sakura found the scene ridiculously endearing but by then she had felt Shizune’s chakra signature leaving and she knew she had to get a move on. She could activate the seal in her bedroom to get there without anyone seeing her but it would probably be for the best that she left right that instant so she could get home before breakfast with Tsunade. 

 

Sakura sighed, really not wanting to leave the warm bed but knowing it was probably best she left before Kakashi became awake enough to freak out. She didn’t think she could handle it well since her own freakout seemed to have decided to be strangely quiet.

 

“Well,” Sakura shrugged and formed a seal with one hand, still inside his covers but not touching him, “I’m off. See ya.”

 

She disappeared with a pop and reappeared in the middle of her room. See ya? What the fuck was that. She wondered if she sounded as pathetic to his ears as she did to hers and if he had interpreted her leaving like that as a retreat.

 

It was. Kind of. There was no regret in the action but she still hadn’t been wanting to deal with the rejection that would surely come from him. Kakashi’s mental breakdown had been delayed by the ungodly hour and Sakura didn’t particularly want to be around to see it happen.

 

Sakura could hear someone banging around in the kitchen cabinets and fought a wince. She usually made breakfast around the house and while it was fairly early, Tsunade would sometimes head over to the office during the weekdays while Sakura left to go train. If her shishou was awake and trying to make breakfast, she definitely noticed Sakura had used her seal to get home. At six in the morning.

 

Sakura walked with quiet feet to the kitchen to find Tsunade bending over the stove and muttering angrily under her breath. She gently pushed the woman aside and took over, muttering a quiet, “Good morning.”

 

Tsunade didn’t answer but sat down at the table and Sakura could feel her gaze on the back of her head.

 

“You just came in,” Tsunade said, not accusatory but with a curious tone that made Sakura sigh and nod slightly.

 

Sakura continued making breakfast and Tsunade got up to get something from the living room. When Sakura set the table, there was a scroll next to her seat.

 

“There’s a mission for you tomorrow,” Tsunade said, sliding the scroll closer to Sakura and bringing her coffee to her lips.

 

“I thought you wanted me to take a longer break this time,” Sakura said, opening the scroll and starting to scan its contents.

 

“Ideally, I would keep you here for two weeks at the least, but the client asked for you specifically.” Tsunade sighed and sipped her coffee while Sakura read the scroll, a frown marring her face. “I already accepted the mission but I can send someone else if you don’t want to take it.”

 

Haruno Yuuka, Sakura’s great aunt and the clan’s Head, was requesting an escort to the Flame Capitol, Hinote no Shuto. For her and the daimyo’s wife. 

 

“I didn’t know they were even here…” Sakura muttered, her stomach rolling uneasily as she continued reading the scroll. Why would she ask for her specifically, especially since the daimyo’s personal guard were accompanying his wife and Sakura’s great aunt? Sakura sighed and closed the scroll. “I’ll take it.”

 

She met Tsunade’s gaze with a tiny smile and the woman nodded at her.

 

“If you’re sure,” she said softly, still giving her an out and Sakura felt her chest go warm at how much Tsunade had her back. “I’m sending Hatake with you.”

 

Sakura couldn’t contain the wince that overtook her. It was tiny, really, barely a reaction at all but Tsunade was an expert at reading her at this point and nothing could get past her.

 

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” she asked, one blonde eyebrow rising over her coffee. Sakura shook her head twice and stuffed her mouth with rice and fish so she wouldn’t have to give a verbal answer. “Well… I’m giving the mission for you to captain so if you have any problems with the old hag, you can pull rank easily.”

 

Sakura turned with wide eyes to stare at Tsunade. While it wasn’t exactly conventional, it was possible for the captaincy to go towards someone who wasn’t the most experienced officer given they had the rank, but it was rare and in this case, Tsunade was doing it just so Sakura could have the upper hand over her clan’s head.

 

“Thank you, shishou,” Sakura said sincerely, smiling gently at her before she took a sip of her tea.

 

“Don’t mention it.” Tsunade waved her hand and narrowed her eyes in contemplation at Sakura. “What’s wrong?”

 

Sakura looked back to her rice and stuffed her mouth with it.

 

“Nothin’ is wrong,” she mumbled around her bite, not caring if it was impolite.

 

Tsunade put her coffee down and Sakura fought the urge to tense at the way the blonde’s laser-sharp eyes focused on her. She continued eating her breakfast while Tsunade’s eyes narrowed even further.

 

“...Where did you say you were again?” Tsunade asked and Sakura gulped.

 

“Nowhere, shishou,” she grumbled, not wanting to deal with this before she could figure what exactly was happening by herself but also not wanting to deal with it at all .

 

Tsunade sighed in irritation.

 

“It’s a little late for teenage rebellion, don’t you think?” Sakura scoffed at that and shot her a deadpan look. Tsunade only waved a hand in the air. “I’m not your mother, girl, I have no interest in chastising you about where you spend your nights. Just spit it out, already.”

 

Sakura sighed, equally irritated as her shishou. She wasn’t annoyed she was asking, but that she didn’t have the answers to the questions that would surely follow. In the end, Sakura figured Tsunade had always been someone that had her back no matter what, and it would be more troublesome to continue denying everything than to just come out and say it.

 

“I was at Kakashi’s.”

 

There was a beat of silence where no one spoke and Sakura stopped eating completely but she only turned to look at Tsunade when a few seconds had gone by without an answer. Tsunade was staring at her with her eyebrows raised and her coffee halfway to her lips.

 

Tsunade didn’t say anything for another beat and Sakura was already feeling stressed, her stomach rolling. Did she break Tsunade? Was there an explosion waiting to happen? Sakura could practically see the engines turning inside Tsunade’s head.

 

“Should… Should I be adding whisky to my coffee this morning, girl?” Tsunade finally said.

 

“It’s not like that!” she blurted out, her cheeks going uncomfortably hot beneath Tsunade’s gaze.

 

“Yet,” Tsunade said after a pause, now looking at Sakura like she was stupid and had to make some kind of connection which, granted, was completely true.

 

Because even if nothing had happened, Sakura couldn’t say she didn’t want something to happen. The closeness they had while in their last mission was something she craved with a need she hadn’t realised was growing but now that she could look it in the eyes and name it, was as clear as day. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to take this but two things she knew for sure: Hatake Kakashi was part of her pack and she wanted him.

 

Sakura sighed, shrugged her shoulders a bit and glared at the ceiling before picking up her cup of tea.

 

“If it was up to me,” she said at least, trying to sound nonchalant but not exactly hitting it, not when she was speaking to her shishou.

 

“Aa…” Tsunade nodded a bit to herself before taking a sip of her coffee, seemingly having recovered from her earlier surprise, as if it all made sense to her now. “It was the mission wasn’t it?”

 

“No!” Sakura exclaimed because, no it wasn’t solely because of the mission but at the same time, “.... yes. I don’t know, okay!”

 

She threw her hands in the air, exasperated with herself for freaking out like this at this moment and not when she should have, safely alone in her own bedroom. 

 

“Okay,” Tsunade said simply, amusement beginning to bleed into her tone and features. Sakura glared at her but her earlier exasperation was slowly going away. 

 

“He’s a really good kisser.” She pouted at her breakfast, finding it completely unfair still that someone could look like that and kiss like that and… it was just really unfair all in all. Tsunade laughed, not at her, Sakura imagined, but at the situation at large.

 

She laughed for a good few beats, her head thrown back and arms going around her belly.

 

“He’s pretty too, isn’t he?” Tsunade composed herself and then looked at Sakura amusedly, cradling her coffee back between her hands. She smirked devilishly when Sakura felt her cheeks redden. 

 

“You’ve seen his face?” Sakura asked, feeling morbidly curious about that. 

 

“A few times, yes.” Tsunade waved her hand around as if it was nothing. “The kid took after his father but his features are from his mother. Makes it a bit unfair, doesn’t it?”

 

“Someone shouldn’t be that pretty,” Sakura muttered, half angrily half amused.

 

She wanted to ask Tsunade more about him, if she had known his parents back then and how. What were they like? But she refrained from breaking Kakashi’s privacy any more than she already had in the past. From this point forward it felt fair that he would disclose things to her on his own free will or not at all.

 

The two of them continued their breakfast without addressing the subject anymore. Though Tsunade broke down in laughter periodically whenever she looked at Sakura, making Sakura’s already slightly pink face burn brighter. She was sorely regretting having told her shishou and could only hope the novelty would pass and she would be more amenable in the future.

 

Since it would be Sakura’s last day in the village for the next few days, Sakura decided to let people know she was leaving, something she didn’t always manage to do. She stopped at the Yamanaka flower shop only to be directed towards Torture and Interrogation. Sakura had full clearance to be there with her ANBU captain clearance but she still drew eyes in her direction with her lack of uniform. 

 

“Yo.” Sakura smiled at Ino and Inoichi when she entered his office. Ino was sitting on a smaller table by his side, reading a few books while her father signed paperwork at his desk.

 

“Sakura, is everything okay?” Inoichi asked, frowning at her unscheduled visit in worry. Sakura waved her hand dismissively and shot him an apologetic look.

 

“Ah, sorry for dropping by, oji-san,” she said. “I was looking for Ino.”

 

“Sakura!” Ino called out in dismay now that she knew Sakura wasn’t there on official business. She stretched her arms above her head and slumped forward on her desk, making grabby hands so Sakura would come forward and hold her hands. “This is literal torture. Please tell me you’ve come to save me.”

 

“Sorry, Ino-chan,” Sakura chuckled at her friend’s pout and the slight sheen to her eyes. Ino was such a drama queen. “I have a long list of things to do for the day but whisking you away before,” Sakura checked the clock on the wall, “ten in the morning is not one of them.”

 

“Why are best friends even for if not to save their super hot other best friend?” Ino raised her eyebrows as if trying to prove a point and smirked when she heard her dad sigh. Sakura chuckled again.

 

“Sorry, I owe you a kidnapping.” Sakura squeezed Ino’s hands before letting go. She stretched her own arms and tried to take a peek at what her friend was working on. The Mysteries of the Mind. “Sounds riveting,” Sakura said drily.

 

“Oh yeah, it gets me off at night,” Ino joked and giggled when her father suppressed a sound in the back of his throat. Sakura shot her friend a look and shook her head with a small laugh.

 

Ino had been shadowing her dad ever since her eighteenth birthday a couple of months ago. She told Sakura she still wasn’t sure if this is the career path she wants to take but despite her complaints, she did enjoy the work. Of course, there was pressure for a girl like her who had enough chakra control to start working with iryo-ninjutsu but they were mostly from old-fashioned people who would prefer a man leading after Inoichi. Ino had said a loud and clear, “Fuck that,” and taken to shadowing her father as a personal middle finger to those people.

 

Sakura couldn’t be prouder.

 

“I just came here to let you know I’m going on a mission tomorrow,” Sakura said, finally getting to her point. “I’ll probably only take a few days but if you could let everyone know, I’d appreciate it.”

 

“Of course!” Ino blinked at her then frowned slightly. “You haven’t even completed two weeks inside the village. Usually when I take a mission that lasts as long as yours I’m given the rest of the month off.”

 

Sakura could see the slight frown between Inoichi’s brows but she just shrugged. Despite the fact that this mission had asked for her specifically, Sakura didn’t make it a habit to spend more than a week in Konoha before taking the next assignment. It had been a habit formed with Team Ro and then later on by sheer need and now that things were normal once again, she just didn’t have a reason not to.

 

Clan kids like the Rookies didn’t fill every possible spot. They were just now beginning to talk about maybe going for a jounin position and most of them were quite content in taking things slow. Exactly like Sakura had wanted for them. It was bad enough that she had been drafted into the silent machinations of the village so fast and that Neji had needed to become a jounin. Let the others take their time.

 

Sakura smiled slightly.

 

“It’s an easy escort one, I won’t even take a full team.” Sakura’s words were meant to be comforting but they only made Ino’s frown deepen.

 

“Is that safe? ” she asked incredulously and Sakura chuckled slightly before nodding.

 

“Kakashi’s coming with me, we’ll be fine.”

 

And that seemed to be final. 

 

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Sakura’s next stop was the Hokage Tower to check the mission roster. Genma was on standby for the day shift and that meant he would most likely be found at the jounin headquarters. She walked towards the building slowly, circling chakra to enhance her senses as she went. 

 

It was strange but after she had gotten the hang of it a couple of years back, Sakura had been feeling the urge to use it more and more every day. At first it had completely overwhelmed her, all of the different sights, noises and smells but now, whenever she wasn’t enhancing herself things felt oddly drab and flat.

 

There was also the fact that being around Kakashi seemed to create an almost uncontrollable need for her to be able to truly feel his scent. Sakura had taken to unconsciously channelling her chakra through her body to enhance her senses and now it was almost second nature, much like healing herself. 

 

Sakura came through the window to the jounin lounge. Genma was sitting with Aoba and Anko on one of the couches there and chatting animatedly. Of course he was, the bastard had woken her up from the best night of sleep in a few days with his happy endeavours and Sakura wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving for that.

 

“Good morning, Jiji,” she said, shunshining to the back of the couch he was sitting on and sitting atop it, her legs dangling in front of her. 

 

The others jumped, weapons at the ready but Genma only flinched away from her.

 

“What the hell, Petal, we’re all old over here do you wanna give us a heart attack?!” Genma exclaimed, eyes wide as the others slowly sat back down. Sakura continued to stare at Genma with a blank smile on her face, crinkling her eyes as she let the smallest amount of killing intent escape. She wasn’t that mad, of course, but she felt like fucking with them for the moment.

 

“We need to have a little chat,” she said, making Genma gulp and look around guiltily. Sakura wondered if he suspected she knew.

 

He cleared his throat and got up, laughing awkwardly, senbon bobbing almost compulsively in his mouth. 

 

“Let’s go to one of the meeting rooms, c’mon,” Genma said, guiding her away and through the hallway before opening one of the rooms.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sakura asked, voice flat trying to hide the hurt she felt. She crossed her arms and avoided his gaze when she heard how it was still visible.

 

“I…” Genma sighed, stepped forward and took one of her hands in his, neither of them having bothered with the desk and chairs in the middle of the room. “She asked me not to tell anyone.”

 

Sakura sighed, letting some of the tension leave her shoulders but still not liking that he had hid this from her. This was them. She didn’t think he would ever lie to her even if someone else had asked for it. And this wasn’t some random hookup for him that she had no business knowing about. This was him and Shizune, the woman he had whispered about to her late at night, saying how much he loved her. 

 

“I don’t mean to overreact it’s just,” Sakura shrugged, squeezing his hand but looking away once again and continuing quietly, a pout undeniable, “ Kakashi knew before I did.”

 

Genma choked out a laugh but quickly sobered and Sakura could read regret clearly on his face. He pulled her enough so he could sit on one of the chairs and Sakura leaned her weight on one leg atop the desk.

 

“Actually, uh, Shizune also told Kurenai,” Genma said, scratching the back of his head.

 

Sakura nodded slightly, her pout undeniably a pout now.

 

“So Asuma knows.” Sakura nodded slightly, looking at the distance as Genma cleared his throat. She sighed. “Why wouldn’t she want you telling me?”

 

Genma seemed torn for a bit before making her look in his eyes. He gave her a little grin that was half sad, half exasperated and Sakura frowned, noticing for the first time that he didn’t look happy about the situation either.

 

“Shizune wanted to be sure I was… serious about her before telling people.” He shrugged a bit and Sakura could see how much that bothered him. “I mean, it has been almost six months so she couldn’t possibly be angry that I told you …” He trailed off, talking almost to himself.

 

Sakura frowned even deeper. Shizune and Sakura had been closer when she was just beginning her training with Tsunade and working quite a lot with the older woman in the lab and at the hospital. Once her training of medical ninjutsu was over, Sakura mostly kept to the office whenever at the village or ANBU headquarters while Shizune was busy running the hospital. They still had meals together sometimes, either back home or in one of the women’s offices but while their relationship had been shaping up to be that of sisters at the beginning, now they were cousins at most.

 

Cousins who supported and cared for each other but didn’t share enough interests outside of the obvious to be close.

 

Still, while Sakura didn’t exactly understand why Shizune wouldn’t want her to know, it still hurt that Genma hadn’t told her. He was closer to her than an actual brother and there was no doubt in her heart that the two of them were pack so… Yeah, Sakura was feeling pretty shitty.

 

“Six months, huh.” Sakura widened her eyes a bit but tried to backtrack as soon as she realised how upset Genma actually was. She tried to put herself in his shoes and could only frown when she did. “Are you two…  happy then?”

 

Genma smiled the most heartbreaking smile she had ever seen and nodded slightly. He did look happy and they hadn’t exactly been fighting that morning but his eyes were still sad in a way she hadn’t bothered to look at. It had probably been staring right in her face for a while but Sakura had been just so fucking self-centred she hadn’t noticed her best friend was going through a rough patch.

 

Sakura could only imagine how much Shizune’s insistence that they keep it a secret was hurting Genma. She knew her senpai was just trying to protect herself from getting hurt but even though Genma had a reputation, he was completely in love with her. How could she not see that and appreciate it?

 

Sakura felt a sudden and unwanted wave of dislike towards Shizune then. She understood, of course, but when it came down to it, her loyalties would always be with Genma no matter what and she couldn’t help but think Shizune was being unfair.

 

“I’m happy,” Genma said and Sakura could see in his face that he knew she was aware that wasn’t the entire truth. In the next second, before Sakura could take the conversation further, he leaned back on his chair and smirked at her. “Speaking of feelings, do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Kakashi?”

 

“No,” Sakura said bluntly, not even bothering to hide her eye roll. Of course, Genma wasn’t having it.

 

“I didn’t know you two were close enough that he’d go around telling other people’s business to you like that.” Genma wiggled his eyebrows and Sakura gasped indignantly.

 

“Other people’s business!” she exclaimed, but Genma rolled over her.

 

“I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed before seeing the two of you this week. You looked positively chummy , Princess,” he said, a somewhat surprised look on his face. “Even Asuma agrees there’s something there, so spill.”

 

“Oh?” Sakura raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t bother fighting the blush on her cheeks. “So you and Asuma have been gossiping about us like a pair of old grandmas?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Genma said unabashedly, nodding his head, “definitely. We even met up after our first training session so he could keep me in the loop of what happened during the mission. You know, it’s completely normal for hookups like that to happen during missions like the last one.”

 

“We were faking it,” Sakura replied emphatically. She knew he was steering the subject towards her so they wouldn’t discuss his problems anymore but she also knew she didn’t want to force him to talk so she let him.

 

“Some of it, sure.” Genma shrugged. “But a lot of what happens in a mission gets taken home, you know.”

 

“That’s not what’s happening, Genma,” Sakura said, the use of his name shocking him.

 

Sakura frowned. Was that what was happening to them? She really didn’t think so. While she was sure this new development had been pushed forward by the nature of their mission, a part of it had been brewing for years. It wasn’t just the physical aspect of it, there were a mutual trust and bond between them that had been reinforced over the years and made them family. Pack. 

 

It was a different feeling to what she’d had with Neji, for example. Sakura trusted him and enjoyed his company and even thought he was hot as fuck, but it didn’t quite compare to what she felt with Kakashi. 

 

With Kakashi, Sakura had a closeness that was hard to explain. The only thing she could compare it to was perhaps what she had with Genma but it was different somehow. Kakashi was a safe port, a beacon in the darkness. His touch brought her comfort for all the reasons an attractive male’s would but also because she felt truly safe while inside his arms. And for a ninja as paranoid and strung up as Sakura, that was everything.

 

Still, she wasn’t particularly ready to dive into all of these things. Sakura was comforted by Kakashi in a lot of ways but having this huge unknown variable hovering over her just wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. It scared her to think about the last time someone had made her stomach flutter like that and she had absolutely no desire to go back to being that girl.

 

For now, Sakura knew she liked his touch and his company and she wouldn’t mind at all taking things further. What she did mind was that he would probably go back to ignoring her.

 

She had felt his chakra signature leaving the Jounin HQ as soon as she entered through the window. She had pushed it away as soon as it happened but now that she had a minute to think about it… Sakura really didn’t want to deal with that either.

 

“Sakura?” Genma asked, worried when she had called him by his actual name and hadn’t even continued the conversation. 

 

Sakura exhaled harshly, scrubbed her hands over her face and let them slowly slide down her cheeks as she groaned.

 

“I don’t know, okay?” Sakura exclaimed yet again that day. The more she was left to marinate on this the more anxious she would get and she had to nip this in the bud. She scowled and got up from the table. “I’m going on a mission tomorrow, I’ll be back before the next week is over. Your job is to be on standby to gather everyone up for Kakashi’s birthday.”

 

“Why is it my job?” Genma pouted around his senbon but Sakura was glad he had let her move on from the subject.

 

“Because you fucking owe me for not telling me about Shizune, old man,” Sakura said, her hands on her hips. She smiled slightly at him. “And I won’t be forgetting about that anytime soon, just so you know.”

 

Genma rolled his eyes but got up and put an arm around her shoulders to guide her out of the room.

 

“I’ll make it up to you somehow, Pinky.”

 

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Notes:

Yeah the Asuma/Genma/Kakashi/Sakura team is still going strong lmao. I'm sorry everyone, I know y'all are excited to get the Danzo situation finally developing but things are gonna slow down for a bit. The previous arc was heavily action packed and while this one will have some of it, it will start off a bit slow, they're coming back to "reality" resituating themselves and all that. Which I personally like seeing (I loooove a good character study and all of that ninja doing normal stuff thing lol) but I understand it might leave some of you wanting. We have some nice turn of events in the next few chapters which I have planned a LONG time ago but wasn't actually sure it would fit in this story... and what do you know, it fit!! :)

Also, and this has nothing to do with this chapter but I just had to share this, yesterday I was writing ahead for this and suddenly wrote something that I went like.... holy shit. So now the plans have changed a bit and I'm so excited about where it's going??!!! Honestly, I managed to surprise myself with this one lmao.

How are you guys? Things over here are preeetty scary but I'm clinging to fanfiction like a fucking lifeline lmfao Also, Valorant xD Tell me a bit about something that happened this week, if you're comfortable ofc! It can be something nice and pretty or an incoherent rant about your government lmfao I'm always listening to what you guys say <3

Happy Fire Friday, all, I hope you have a nice weekend <3

Chapter 41: Haruno Yuuka

Notes:

Hiya, babes!!! Sorry this is coming later in the day than I wanted it to lol it's been a weird week. Happy Fire Friday!! :)

You guys really didn't like some things about last chapter, huh?! xD That's okay, I spoke about it a lil bit over on Tumblr but since these next few chapters aren't about that at all, I'll only properly address it once that particular plot point is fully unraveled.

I hope you like this one, I sure do heheh

Sakura adjusted her pack and took to the trees. It was still early, only nine in the morning when they had to meet their client at ten, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. Just like her first mission with Tachibana, this wasn’t only about the escorting, it was also everything that was said and left unsaid. Being late wasn’t an option and with her partner, she had to take matters into her own hands.

 

While Sakura wasn’t exactly tied down to her family anymore, she still kept her surname and it wouldn’t be smart to completely disregard her clan head. While she affiliated herself to the Senju shinobi clan and was Tsunade’s heir, in the civilian world her connection to the Haruno clan could possibly mean more. Sakura wasn’t stupid enough to completely burn that bridge like some clan shinobi would.

 

Shinobi were careless in the way they underestimated civilians. The daimyo held as much power as the Hokage and civilians were tricky in their machinations. They controlled commerce and politics as much as shinobi and that made them dangerous. Coupled that with the fact that they had much better ties with the other countries, Sakura couldn’t ignore a direct summons from Haruno Yuuka.

 

She had dressed that day as if she was going to a special meeting. This was a jounin mission and not ANBU so she had been able to forgo the formal uniform and instead dressed as she had for Tachibana. Stating her clan but clearly showing she was a shinobi and a good one at that.

 

She was wearing her dark shorts and her usual halter top bodysuit with a red sash around her waist, fingerless gloves that disappeared beneath the sleeves of her haori. Armed to the teeth and strapped with her full arsenal of pouches, there was no denying that she looked like a dangerous shinobi.

 

Her haori was Haruno red but there was no mistaking her for anything other than the Red Wolf of Konoha. Sakura-hime.

 

She stopped outside Kakashi’s window, perching on his empty flower bed for a second to disarm his traps but not hesitating before going inside. Despite knowing for a fact that he would have avoided her for some time if they hadn’t been assigned as partners, she didn’t linger on the bad taste it brought to her mouth.

 

Sakura knew that Kakashi was difficult, his trauma was so deep seated that she wondered if he could ever be considered normal. She also understood him, to his very core. She knew he was right there with her in this crazy, undeniable attraction and that in his head, she was important. She also knew that he had a lot to deal with to accept things like she had.

 

Still, while she would have liked to have given him at least some space to figure himself out, this mission took precedence over their complicated feelings. For this mission, he was her partner and all of that bullshit could be pushed to the side until they were back home.

 

“You’re napping,” she said, her voice blunt and not at all surprised. He must have made his rounds to the memorial earlier in the morning and she wondered distantly if he had lost sleep over her if he was tired enough to take a nap before their mission.

 

Kakashi had one arm slung over his eyes as he laid on top of his covers, Icha Icha opened on his chest. He grunted at the sound of her voice but didn’t take long to look at her, squinting through his lashes.

 

“I’m not late yet,” he replied after checking his clock. 

 

Sakura shrugged and went over to the desk where his bag was packed. She took out everything he had and laid it out next to it, taking stock of everything. Weapons, a change of uniform, toiletries, soldier pills and a sealing scroll.

 

“Do you have anything with your clan symbol on it?” Sakura asked. She heard rustling from behind her and Kakashi’s almost silent sigh as he sat up.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asked instead and Sakura frowned at the confusion in his voice. He didn’t sound mad that she had invaded his privacy but there was a harshness to his tone that most wouldn’t notice but was clear as day for Sakura. 

 

She paused in her tidying, set the scroll back down on the desk and turned to look at him. She tried not to let any of her anxiety show on her features, set them to be as much of a clean slate as possible and forced herself to relax back against the desk.

 

“I need you to be my partner, Kakashi,” she said honestly. She knew by the widening of his eyes that he had misinterpreted her meaning so she continued before he could react. “This mission is more than it looks like and I need the two of us to be in top shape to see it through. I can’t be wondering if you have my back or not. I know you were planning on pretending I didn’t exist for the next month at least but you’re gonna have to hold off on it for a while longer, okay?”

 

Kakashi was still staring up at her, both eyes opened and looking all confused and called out and sweet. He coughed awkwardly and nodded, averting his eyes and closing the Sharingan again but not saying anything.

 

Idiot, she thought, her lips curling into an involuntary smile. She clapped her hands like she did with her students.

 

“Right!” she exclaimed and turned back to his pack. “Do you have any more traditional clothes? Preferably one that has your clan symbol on it.”

 

Kakashi got up and made his way to his closet and Sakura tried not to breathe a sigh of relief that he had complied with her wishes to just move past this awkwardness.

 

“I have a couple of old shirts back at my father’s house but nothing here,” he said, making Sakura frown. She knew that he hadn’t exactly bothered with maintaining his clan but she figured he’d have at least one piece of clothing with his symbol.

 

“What about traditional clothes in general?” Sakura asked, turning to watch him worriedly. This wasn’t a huge deal but it would surely have helped. She was hit in the face with a piece of fabric as soon as she turned around.

 

“There you go, Sakura-chan. Hakama and kimono and even a haori to go with it.” The bastard sounded cheery as she hurriedly took the fabric off her face, her hair messily falling over her eyes.

 

She glared at him briefly but was ultimately glad that he seemed to have made a conscious effort to go back to his old self. It would have been better if he had looked like a proper clan head but Sakura could adjust accordingly to this. Instead of a clan head look, they could go for the dangerous shinobi vibe. That could work. Sakura nodded to herself and discarded the haori on his bed. 

 

“You’re not going with your jounin uniform,” she told him, knowing full well how bossy she sounded. She took the spare uniform he had packed and placed it on his bed as well. “I need you to dress like you would gladly live up to your name anytime, okay? No cheery façade and pretending to have been a jounin sensei or anything like that, I need Hound-taichou for this mission. Maybe you could wear your ANBU pants, the undershirt and…”

 

Sakura mumbled almost to herself while she anxiously ran her hands through her hair. She had really hoped he would have had anything resembling clan clothes but that had been stupid and unprofessional of her to assume. What she should have done was to have taken her head out of her ass and gone to him yesterday to settle everything but she had naively thought it would have been best to give him at least a day of space. Of course, that was stupid and— 

 

“Sakura.” Kakashi’s voice was harsh, making her eyes snap to his in surprise. She wondered how long he’d been calling for her. “What’s wrong?”

 

He looked worried and completely alert now, looking mission ready. Sakura sighed and ran a hand over her face, trying to let go of some of the tension in her shoulders. Kakashi was an elite shinobi, if he thought she was actually this worried about a mission, of course his head would instantly go towards a threat. 

 

“It’s just…” Sakura swallowed and raised one shoulder slightly, trying to convey her worries without sounding like a scared twelve-year-old. “The Haruno clan is incredibly important, Kakashi. I’m not on the best of terms with them and I just want to be prepared for anything.”

 

She felt small, standing next to him in his room, her familiar insecurities laid bare for him to see. It’s not like she didn’t trust her abilities and appreciated how far she’d come, but there was an old fear rooted in the knowledge that she had never been enough for her parents that somehow meeting the clan head for the first time ever since she was a child would dismantle everything she had worked so hard to build for herself.

 

Sakura wasn’t exactly scared of the power Haruno Yuuka held but more of how much her great aunt could affect her personally. This was just dredging up old feelings of inadequacy that she had growing up and what made her ultimately run away from home. 

 

Kakashi’s hand fell heavy on her shoulder.

 

“The mission will work out fine, Sakura,” he said, his voice low and comforting and it threatened to make her shiver. She looked at him to see his eye already trained on her, a serious expression hidden by his mask but not the hitai-ate. “I think I know where you’re going with this. Let me pack something other than the uniform and change and then we’ll go to the meeting point.”

 

Sakura nodded, suddenly speechless, as he took a step backwards and moved around the room quickly and efficiently. Sakura tried not to stare but it was hard given how beautiful he was. Even completely covered up, seeing the concentrated expression on his face, the way he moved fluidly and without pause was enough to draw Sakura’s attention.

 

When he closed himself inside his bathroom with a change of clothes, Sakura sat heavily on his bed and buried her face in her hands. She took a deep long breath, counted until eight and forced herself to release it in twelve seconds. When she was done, Inner had pushed away all of her feelings and had given her a cloak and mask to wear.

 

This one wasn’t meant to intimidate or scare but it was the one she held over herself when dealing with people like the Elders. Detached but polite, scarily put together and in control.

 

Kakashi came out of the bathroom and she let her eyes rove over him clinically. He was wearing his ANBU pants, the new ones that were made from the most expensive material a shinobi could wear. Sakura could see from beneath the jounin sweater he was just sliding down his chest that he had on his chainmail mesh undershirt and standard black gloves. Instead of wearing his flak jacket, he had on various pouches much like she did and a tanto strapped to his back. Both of them were ready for the colder weather of the North.

 

“Let’s go,” Sakura said and the two of them left. Kakashi paused only long enough to lock up and then they took to the roofs. 

 

They arrived outside the Hokage’s office fifteen minutes before ten.

 

“You’re actually early,” Tsunade said, raising her eyebrow in amusement at their clothes. “Ah, good choice.”

 

“Thanks, Shishou,” Sakura said, forgoing protocol and stepping around the table to sit on the windowsill behind Tsunade’s desk. She was supposed to be waiting patiently for the daimyo’s wife and her clan head to arrive and be ready to give them both over the top respectful bows, but Sakura wouldn’t play that part. 

 

She raised one leg to rest her elbow on her knee and stared at the sky outside as Kakashi situated himself on Tsunade’s other side. She looked him over to see he was leaning against the windowsill, one leg crossed over the other and Icha Icha in hand. She wondered distantly if it was actually Violence or if he was reading another one that day.

 

“You okay?” Tsunade asked, not looking back at Sakura and not stopping her stamping on paperwork. Her voice was quiet but not overly worried and Sakura appreciated it.

 

“Yep,” Sakura said, infusing some cheerfulness in her voice and popping her ‘p’. She pretended not to notice the side eye Kakashi gave her. 

 

It was merely a few minutes later that someone knocked on Tsunade’s door. Sakura immediately frowned when her enhanced sense caught on to who was behind the door, not having expected this turn of events.

 

An older woman entered first, her features strikingly beautiful even if her age was apparent. She had long dark hair that ran shiny down her back in a style not exactly befitting of royalty. The crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes and the lines around her mouth were more pronounced but she held herself in a way that commanded attention and made Sakura do a double take. 

 

The second woman to come through the door, only a step behind the first, was most definitely Sakura’s great aunt. She had red hair just a few shades lighter than the shade Sakura used for her ANBU disguise as Akari, and half of it was held up by a golden hair comb. She looked older than the first woman but not by much and Sakura was sure her great aunt was approaching her sixties. She was only a few years older than her sister, Sakura’s grandmother, so if Sakura had her math right, Haruno Yuuka was around fifty-seven years old. 

 

Behind the two of them, came Sakura’s parents. 

 

“Nohime-dono, Haruno-dono,” Tsunade greeted the women and spared Sakura’s parents with just a look. “Will your guests need escorting to the Flame Capitol as well?”

 

“Not at all,” Nohime, the daimyo’s wife, said, her voice sweet and melodic, her accent the polished sound from the capitol. “They’ll accompany us to the gates to say their goodbyes.” 

 

Sakura swept her eyes over the four of them, not stopping to notice her parent’s expressions when movement from the door caught her attention.

 

“Nohime-sama.” A guard kneeled at Nohime’s feet. “The rest of the guard is ready with the caravan outside the gates.”

 

“Very well.” Nohime nodded and the guard got up. He seemed to be around Kakashi’s age, maybe younger, with short brown hair and classic shinobi blue, a white band around his hips with the symbol of the land of fire in it. He turned towards Tsunade and bowed, doing a perfectly executed ninety-degree bow. It was polite, certainly, but less so than the way he had kneeled for his own mistress. 

 

Sakura frowned.

 

“This is Sakura-hime and Hatake Kakashi,” Tsunade said, her voice coldly detached as she raised an eyebrow at the guard, surely having realised how he had slighted her. Sakura fought the urge to roll her eyes at how her shishou had introduced her. 

 

Despite finding it exasperating that the princess thing had stuck, she really appreciated that Tsunade was doing everything she could to show the proper deference that Sakura should be given and even going as far as introducing her without mentioning the Haruno name so that the others would know Sakura wasn’t there acting inside her clan’s capacity. 

 

Sakura nodded at Nohime and fought the smirk that wanted to spread across her lips as her mother gasped in outrage. Kakashi bowed but it was a bow much shallower than what he would give the Hokage. Honestly, Sakura couldn’t believe the audacity of that guard. 

 

“I take it your guard will want to discuss strategies with the team captain before you leave,” Tsunade said, finally getting up from behind her desk. Sakura wondered if it was just her that felt how Tsunade’s presence seemed to take up the room but then she saw the tiniest of fidgeting her parents did and this time she couldn’t fight the slight twitch of her eyebrow in amusement.

 

“The royal guard will take position in the trees as we move forward with the caravan so your shinobi won’t need to bother with that, Hokage-sama,” Nohime said and Sakura fought a frown. She didn’t like that they had basically been summoned for a needless mission. “I’ll appreciate their company inside the caravan, however, and whatever stops we make along the way.”

 

Stops? There had been no mention of that. Sakura frowned further, not liking one bit all of these things thrown their way.

 

“I wasn’t aware there would be any deviations during the trip to Hinote no Shuto, Nohime-dono,” Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow at the woman. The daimyo’s wife laughed beautifully but it was Sakura’s great aunt who answered.

 

“We’re old women, Hokage-sama, we indulge our whims,” she said, her voice husky and a smooth smile that Sakura didn’t trust in the least on her beautiful features. “Besides, there are also a few Haruno stalls it wouldn’t hurt to check up on along the way.”

 

“We will increase the pay if the mission exceeds a week, of course, and pay for the rest of the days if it ends earlier than that.” Nohime smiled as well and inclined her head politely. 

 

Sakura turned to shoot a look at Kakashi and he caught it with a two fingered salute. They moved forward as a unit past the Hokage desk to get closer to the door.

 

“Well, we should get going,” Kakashi said, nodding at her before putting his book away. 

 

“I’ll take it you’re the team captain,” the guard said, coming to stand in front of Kakashi. “I have seven men working the streets and I’ll be at the head of the caravan.”

 

He looked like he was about to keep going but Kakashi raised a hand and stopped him.

 

“I’m not the team captain. Sakura-hime is,” he said before placing both hands inside his pockets and slouching like he usually did. 

 

The guard turned and blinked at her for a few seconds, prompting Sakura to raise her eyebrows expectantly as if to say: “Well?”

 

“Oh, well,” he cleared his throat and continued. “Your job will be to accompany Nohime-sama and Haruno-sama inside the caravan. Whenever we stop for the night, my guards will take care of securing the place and you can rest.”

 

Sakura stared him down until he looked away uncomfortably. Their presence in this mission was completely unnecessary and it made unease pool in her stomach. She exchanged a look with Kakashi, seeing he was as annoyed as her even though no one else would be able to see it, before she gave a nod.

 

“Let’s head out.” 

 

Sakura exchanged goodbyes with Tsunade and then the group left as one. Sakura and Kakashi were in the front leading the way for Nohime and Yuuka with her parents a few steps behind and the annoying guard bringing their rear. Outside the village gates, they stopped for Sakura’s parents to bid them goodbye and for their clients to board the caravan. 

 

“Until later in the year, oba-sama.” Kizashi bowed towards his aunt and Mebuki followed suit. The four of them exchanged pleasantries before her parents turned towards her.

 

“Sakura,” her dad said, his voice tight as he nodded at her. There was an awkward pause where it seemed like he was going to say something else but nothing came out so Sakura raised her eyebrow slightly.

 

“Father,” she acknowledged him but didn’t go any further as well. Her mother’s mouth tightened but the two eventually turned to go back inside the village. 

 

Sakura fought the need to sigh and turned towards her clients.

 

“Before we leave, I’d like to summon my wolves to accompany us on the way there. They will be able to sense danger way before any of your men,” Sakura said, directing it at both Nohime and Yuuka. The two women exchanged glances, the type that only someone really close would be able to read and Sakura catalogued it in the back of her mind.

 

“If you insist,” Nohime said, nodding approvingly. 

 

“Shinobi paranoia sounds unnecessary until it isn’t, Nohime-sama.” Sakura smiled at the woman, her most charming and disarming smile in place, before she bit into her thumb and performed the seals to summon her pack.

 

“Sakura-hime,” Hotaka greeted her when the smoke cleared. He surveyed the assembled guards disinterestedly, sniffing the air around him, before turning back to wait for Sakura’s instructions. 

 

“We’ll be headed towards Hinote no Shuto, Hotaka,” Sakura said, using her fingers to scratch slightly at the wolf’s chin and thoroughly enjoying the way the other shinobi tensed when he growled slightly in content. “Once we stop for the night, I’ll trade you for someone else so you can rest.”

 

“Hai, Sakura-hime,” Hotaka said dutifully. He bumped her hand with his nose and paused briefly to sniff and lick at Kakashi’s toes before disappearing into the trees. 

 

“Well, come on then, we don’t have all day,” Yuuka said, hiking up her skirts in the most unladylike way as she ushered Nohime forward towards the caravan and climbed in herself. 

 

Sakura blinked at the sudden change of the woman and shook her head a bit before following Nohime’s giggles inside. She exchanged a bemused look with Kakashi before he closed the door behind him.

 

The caravan was overly large and Sakura figured that alone would slow their travel down considerably. As soon as they were inside, the horses pulling it started moving and Sakura and Kakashi stuck their feet with chakra to the floor to stay still.

 

There was a low table just before them right in the middle of the caravan. All around it, fancy purple and red cushions lined the floor and walls and there was a sliding door on the other end of the caravan. A bathroom and a bedroom, Sakura could see, and there seemed to be only one bed. 

 

“Well?” Yuuka asked from where she was crawling over the cushions to the other side. “Are you two just going to stand there like two shinobi statues? Sit down, already.”

 

Sakura took her knee high black boots off and scooted on a cushion until she could make way for Kakashi to sit next to her. He took his own sandals off, cleared his throat awkwardly when he looked to the other women and sat dutifully beside her. Sakura followed his gaze and almost choked on her spit.

 

Yuuka was unknotting the obi around Nohime’s waist as the two of them stood on top of the cushions and giggled while they tried to maintain themselves standing upright. Nohime was holding both of their sandals and when the obi was loose enough, she stepped into the separate bedroom and was hidden behind the wall. 

 

Yuuka followed her but didn’t bother to close the shoji door.

 

“What the fuck,” Sakura whispered, low enough that the other two wouldn’t be able to hear it but Kakashi huffed a half amused half incredulous breath. A few minutes later, Yuuka came back.

 

She was wearing a long dark red yukata, the type that one should only wear while inside their home in privacy because of how loose and frankly suggestive it was. Sakura was horrified to realise she could tell Yuuka wasn’t wearing a bra.

 

“So, the Hatake wolves, huh?” Yuuka said as she reached for a box sitting on top of the small table and pulled a shiny jade pipe from it. “I wouldn’t have expected to see them with you, girl.”

 

There was a pause as Yuuka opened one of the tiny windows and lit her pipe. Sakura could smell tobacco but also different herbs and she raised an eyebrow. 

 

“How did you recognise they’re Hatake wolves?” Kakashi asked the question that should have been on Sakura’s tongue but she was too busy gawking at her clan head.

 

Yuuka laughed and her laugh was the same husky sound as her voice, it surprised Sakura to no end how carefree it sounded.

 

“Hatake Sakumo was your daddy wasn’t he, kid?” She pointed her pipe towards Kakashi and Sakura could practically feel him tensing up from beside her. “He escorted me towards Kumo once. A nice man, dutiful. Honourable. A shame what happened to him, truly. I’m glad my niece is someone the Hatake would consider enough to pass down their wolves.”

 

There was a beat of silence where Sakura only gaped at Yuuka as the woman puffed on her pipe before Kakashi said something.

 

“You knew my dad?” His voice wasn’t exactly affected but Sakura could see his hand had clenched on top of his pants before he forced himself to relax. 

 

“Yes, our trip took about a week.” Yuuka nodded and puffed her pipe again. “I believe your mother was pregnant with you at the time. I sent back a baby blanket with your clan’s symbol on it when we parted ways.”

 

Yuuka was smiling at Kakashi now and Sakura didn’t have to look at him to know how shocked he felt. She didn’t know exactly what was going on but having Sakumo mentioned like that in conversation had thrown her off, she could only imagine what Kakashi was feeling. 

 

Nohime called for Yuuka from the bedroom and her great aunt raised gracefully to her feet without a backward glance towards them. Sakura took the opportunity to place her hand around Kakashi’s forearm, on the skin peaking between his shirt and gloves. She tried to regulate his chakra flow from the erratic movements it had taken to doing. 

 

Kakashi’s face snapped towards her, his eye boring into hers intensely. She had never done this to him before and she didn’t know exactly if he was feeling like she overstepped a boundary or relieved that at least some of his emotions had been calmed by her chakra manipulation. The fact that he didn’t pull away was promising but before she could search him for more, Yuuka and Nohime came back.

 

Sakura took her hand away and focused back on their clients. 

 

Nohime, while considerably dressed down, was only wearing a light yukata, her hair now up in a loose bun. Yuuka’s yukata fell on one shoulder and she made no move to fix it as she engaged Nohime in a game of shogi. 

 

Kakashi and Sakura were invited to participate but they refused. Kakashi because he seemed to have closed up after the mention of his father and Sakura because she was finding it all too odd the sudden turn Yuuka’s personality had taken.

 

This was the Haruno Clan Head and she wasn’t at all like Sakura had expected. She remembered meeting the women a few times before she turned six and joined the Academy and had stopped going to the annual clan gatherings because she couldn’t afford to miss any of the classes. 

 

Sakura and everyone else had always been dressed to the nines at those encounters, putting every ounce of her etiquette training to use as if they had been ready to meet the daimyo himself. She eyed Nohime curiously. Considering the company her great aunt kept, it wouldn’t be too out of character.

 

Still, she couldn’t have imagined that Yuuka would be so… casual. More importantly, this only served to confuse Sakura further as to the reason she had been asked to come along.

 

“Right, we have to change!” Yuuka said suddenly when the caravan started to slow and the sounds of a city could be heard in the distance. She jumped to her feet in a move Sakura wouldn’t have expected from a civilian her age and pulled Nohime up with her. 

 

“Excuse us, Sakura-hime, Kakashi-san.” Nohime bowed her head demurely before the shoji door slapped shut. 

 

Kakashi and Sakura just sat in silence for a while before Sakura sighed and slumped in her seat. She was so confused. What the fuck were they even doing stopping so soon, anyway? Fuck , she wanted a cigarette.

 

“That thing with your chakra…” Kakashi said suddenly, bursting into speech so abruptly she was startled and then wondered how long he’d been trying to convince himself not to speak. “What was it?”

 

“I don’t know, actually,” Sakura said quietly, shrugging her shoulders. She turned her head to see him but he was still resolutely facing away from her. “I felt your chakra… churning anxiously, I guess. I’m familiar enough with chakra manipulation and insertion to be able to calm it down to its normal levels?”

 

Sakura shrugged again as her sentence ended in a question. She really wasn’t sure what she had done, it had felt a bit like she used medical-ninjutsu to put someone into a coma but instead of manipulating his body with her chakra, she had used it on his chakra system. 

 

“So you... “ Kakashi trailed off, trying to make sense of things. “You were able to control my chakra?”

 

“I don’t think I was controlling your chakra,” Sakura said slowly, trying to understand it herself. “It was more like I used my chakra to guide yours to slow down? I… Was it too much, should I not have done that?”

 

Kakashi ran a hand through the hair over his hitai-ate before he answered, slowly.

 

“No, it… It calmed down,” he said. In the next second he was up and moving towards his shoes but Sakura’s hearing caught his muttered, “It felt good.”

 

Sakura blinked at the short table in front of her but didn’t have time to mull over his words because their clients came out of the bedroom then and she had to fight to keep her jaw hinged.

 

They were dressed up to party. 

 

Not in the way royalty did, with layers over layers of kimono, their hair up in complicated dos and tittering on top of their geta sandals. Yuuka and Nohime despite being over fifty, were wearing revealing party dresses, low heels and makeup. 

 

Yuuka’s sparkly green dress had long sleeves but the cleavage was just short of vulgar and Nohime’s dress was held up by thin spaghetti straps. Sakura only managed to get herself together when they stopped completely and their guard was opening the door. 

 

The women moved outside and Sakura and Kakashi followed behind them dutifully even as Sakura had about three identity crises inside her head. They had stopped in Tanzaku Gai, the city closest to Konoha heading north. A gambling city. 

 

Yuuka and Nohime were immediately escorted to an establishment in front of them which Sakura quickly recognised as a casino and she followed behind them, snapping out of it now that she realised they were in a city and despite the women’s guards, Sakura was there to protect them. 

 

For the next two and a half hours, Sakura and Kakashi watched over the women and Sakura tried to hide how horrified she was. Yuuka was a scoundrel. Sakura had seen her kiss more than a few men, some of them half her age as she moved across the floor with Nohime, winning more games than she lost. 

 

Sakura and Kakashi held their guards separately while the other went to eat and relieve themselves but the sun was just beginning to set when the two women decided to go back to their caravan. 

 

They travelled through the darkening streets for about an hour before reaching their destination. Yuuka and Nohime had brought a bottle of sakura sake from the bedroom and practically forced Sakura and Kakashi to drink at least one cup with them as they exchanged stories from twenty years before and laughed themselves silly. 

 

Sakura wanted absolutely nothing more than to have a cigarette but she stopped herself from doing it. They had arrived in Hasaki, an industrial town that had a foggy feeling to it and buildings bigger than what Sakura was used to back home. 

 

They entered a luxurious hotel and were immediately led to the top floor towards the daimyo suite. Sakura had a brief moment in her room, a bedroom connected to a common area that all four of them shared, in which she talked to Hotaka. She let him go for the night and summoned Kaede to look over the hotel for the night, letting him know that she would be calling Kimi in the morning.

 

She had only a few minutes to herself before there was a knock on her door.

 

“They’re going downstairs to the casino.” It was Kakashi, still dressed in his day clothes. Sakura mentally cursed the old ladies. “I sent a clone to follow them since they didn’t bother to inform us they weren’t retiring for the night.”

 

She could hear the irritation in his voice and she couldn’t help but agree. Clients who treated their safety so carelessly were hard to deal with and Sakura wasn’t about to be manipulated by a couple of old crones. 

 

They made their way to the casino on the first floor, this one much bigger than the one in Tanzaku Gai, and Sakura quickly tracked down the two women. They were gambling in a private room and Sakura had to threaten the guards until they created enough of a commotion that Yuuka came to let them through.

 

Sakura berated her clan head like she was a child and the old woman brushed her off and told her that if she absolutely must be everywhere she was, then the least she could do was participate. This made Sakura take a deep breath, push her irritation away and change gears. 

 

If Yuuka wanted to be like that, completely disregard the fact that Sakura was from her clan and her employee, then Sakura would do what she did while working in ANBU. The best way to complete this mission was to fit in, so she did.

 

She let her haori pool around her elbows to expose her back, laughed at the men’s jokes, gambled like she had been taught and drank her sake. Of course, she metabolised it out of her system as soon as possible, but no one needed to know that.

 

Kakashi for his part had quickly caught on to what she was doing and adjusted his character appropriately. They still kept the aura of danger around them, a clear warning to anyone who wanted to start trouble. While Sakura wasn’t quite the cheerful version of Akari and Kakashi kept most of his eccentricities and quirky habits to himself, they had kept a certain amount of teasing and enjoyment to their countenances. Dangerous but approachable, mean but enticing.

 

Of course, Kakashi kept a much better hold on the amount of alcohol he ingested. 

 

By the time the women had finally grown tired—and Yuuka had taken a man with salt and pepper hair to the adjoining bathroom for quite a while—it was well past four in the morning. Sakura was used to staying awake like this for missions but it was still draining and she had barely made it into her bedroom before collapsing on her bed. 

 

A few minutes later, she heard the door creak open. Her instincts instantly made her body tense for attack but it was only for a second before she recognised the presence. Kakashi dropped in the bed next to her. 

 

It was colder in Hasaki than in Konoha even if not by a lot but Sakura didn’t bother getting beneath her covers. She didn’t bother even removing a single article and neither had Kakashi by the look of it. 

 

“Kashi,” she mumbled into her pillow where she was lying face down, not even knowing if she sounded coherent. “The alarm.”

 

The last thing she remembered was feeling the bed shift as Kakashi reached to set their alarm for the morning before she fell into a deep sleep.

 

.

 

.

 

.

  

 

The alarm sounded at exactly seven in the morning and both Kakashi and Sakura got up without much hassle. They had had only a few hours of sleep but they were shinobi and this was a mission so the slight discomfort hadn’t even settled. Sakura made their bed as Kakashi went about putting himself together in his room. She summoned Kaede by their bond to let him know he could leave and to ready up Misaki to take the night shift before summoning Kimi.

 

Sleeping in her day clothes hadn’t been the best of ideas because now she had various sore spots from where her weapons had dug in during her short sleep and her haori was so wrinkled Sakura didn’t even dare put it back on when she left the shower.

 

Instead she put on a long sleeved version of her bodysuit and hoped it was warm enough for the weather paired with her shorts.

 

They were in the caravan by eight in the morning after having ordered breakfast at their suite. While Sakura and Kakashi dutifully sat through their journey with their senses sharpened and ready, Yuuka and Nohime went straight to the bedroom in the caravan and fell into a deep sleep that was uninterrupted even by the bumps on the road. 

 

When it was around noon, the caravan rolled to a stop outside a village.

 

Kamisu was a big village much like Konoha but it wasn’t as modern as Hasaki and Sakura remembered having visited this place during the summer when she was five or six. They stopped at the Haruno summer house where a man named Ikeda manned the stall at the civilian market.

 

While the Haruno family had only Sakura’s father and Yuuka’s son as heirs, the family held several stalls in all major villages and quite a few caravans that moved throughout the continent. The stalls were run by people under Haruno protection and while they ultimately served Haruno Yuuka, they could live a happy life and be considered part of the clan.

 

The summer house wasn’t exactly a huge place but it was bigger than Sakura’s childhood home back in Konoha, mainly because it was placed in the outskirts of the village where there was much more space. The house had two stories, more than five bedrooms, and a stable in the back. 

 

The four of them had lunch in the civilian market, Yuuka and Nohime sitting at one table with Kakashi and Sakura at the other next to them, and then they spent the rest of the afternoon manning the Haruno stall. While it wasn’t something Sakura strived to do and took great pleasure in, that afternoon felt especially nostalgic to her.

 

She didn’t know the names of the people coming up to the stall but helping them find what they wanted, haggling prices and catering to their tastes was something she used to associate with the good times her family had. Back when she was young and being trained by her dad to learn how to read people and react accordingly and by her mom how to keep up with finances. Sakura remembered getting out of the Academy exhausted and coming up to the family stall to help sell their wares while her parents failed to appreciate how much effort she had been putting in being a good kunoichi inside the Academy.

 

Kakashi had spent most of the afternoon with Nohime in the back of the stall as she drank tea to warm herself and played shogi. But there had been a point where Sakura, Yuuka, and Ikeda had gotten mildly overwhelmed by the big influx of clients where he had smoothly gotten up and stepped in.

 

Sakura forgot sometimes just how much of a shinobi Kakashi truly was. It wasn’t always about his prowess during a fight or the innate strategist that he was. Sometimes it showed in his skill in manipulation and the quick way he adapted to his environment and Sakura found herself admiring that part of him just as much as the others. 

 

He knew how to work a crowd, how to entice someone and figure out how to respond accordingly to each individual with barely a look at them. Sakura wondered how a man that had such a skill could be so emotionally stunted. 

 

They made their way back to the estate at night and Sakura had commemorated that they seemed to be gearing up for a quiet night in. 

 

She had celebrated too soon.

 

Yuuka and Nohime had taken to the drawing room where they raided the liquor cabinet, made the staff serve them late dinners with more dessert than was warranted and turned up some music. Kakashi and Sakura, ever the dutiful shinobi, stayed with them and participated in their festivities, Sakura metabolising her alcohol and Kakashi tricking the others into thinking he was drinking more than he actually was.

 

At ten in the evening, Sakura excused herself to relieve Kimi and summon Misaki but when she came back it had seemed like their private party had just been getting started. Yuuka taught them how to play a game of cards Sakura had never heard of before and the four of them talked and drank and played well into the early hours of the morning. 

 

Sakura saw the women to their bedrooms when it was around three in the morning. Not as late as it could have been, granted, and Sakura would take that as a win. 

 

She took a quick shower and put on the yukata the staff had laid out for her and when she came back, Kakashi was just coming in from the window. The two of them stared at each other for a beat, thousands of feelings and thoughts crossing their minds and clear on their faces for the other to see. 

 

Sakura could see the resignation on his face, covered up by the mask as it was and it made a weight lift from her shoulders. He wasn’t fighting this anymore, it seemed. Sakura wondered if he understood all of the implications of him being there that night—and the night before—but figured it would be better if she didn’t dwell on them herself. She was quite content with going with the flow, doing what felt natural.

 

And this, Kakashi, felt natural.

 

He picked up the clock on her bedside table and set the alarm for seven again and the two of them slid into bed together. For a while Sakura stayed on her side of the bed but then his hand reached for hers, his warm skin immediately soothing. His fingers caught on the scar on the palm of her hand where she had cut herself for the first time to summon the wolves and Sakura shivered. 

 

She didn’t know who moved first, maybe he pulled her to him because he thought she was cold or maybe it was her that instinctively sought out his warmth, it didn’t matter. They met in the middle of the soft bed, his hand gripped hers tighter and she returned the hold, pulling him so he’d put his arm around her from behind and she could snuggle back into him safely, warmly. 

 

Sakura fell asleep before they had even properly settled in their new position.

 

The next morning had them waking up just like the day before, way too soon for either of their liking and slightly harder than the day before but not a hassle for their shinobi senses. Kakashi made the bed this time while she quickly put herself together in the bathroom. 

 

The maids had taken her haori and some of her dirty articles the day before and were just about to knock on her door to deliver them when she exited the room. Sakura gladly pulled on the haori and put away the rest of her things before making her way downstairs for breakfast. 

 

The two women were quieter than Sakura had seen them so far bar their first introduction in Tsunade’s office but Sakura knew the two old jerks would have the whole ride to their next destination to nap about. 

 

Sakura fought a pout as they all sat down to eat together. 

 

She called for Hideki after Misaki left and was ready to depart when Nohime deviated from the plan.

 

“Hatake-san,” she said sweetly when Sakura had come back from the garden. “Could you escort me towards the market for a bit of last minute shopping?”

 

The tactic was obviously a way to try and get Sakura alone with Yuuka but Sakura hadn’t felt any ill intentions from either of the women so far so when Kakashi turned to confirm with her, she simply nodded and then he was out of the door. 

 

“Have tea with me, girl,” Yuuka said, not leaving space for Sakura to refuse as she made her way to the drawing room. 

 

The two of them sat at the low table, Yuuka kneeling primly in the elaborate kimono she had been wearing in the village, a complete contrast to the woman from two nights ago. Sakura eyed her carefully as the maid served the tea before leaving the room. 

 

Yuuka brought her cup to blow lightly on it and raised an amused eyebrow at Sakura.

 

“I know Sakumo’s boy spent the night in your bed last night.”

 

Sakura controlled her features to keep her surprise away but couldn’t contain the sudden quickening of her heartbeat. She had never heard anyone refer to him like that before and it made something warm settle on her stomach. Boy. The thought was equal parts endearing and laughable. 

 

Sakura figured fear should be an appropriate response to Yuuka bringing it up like that. Rumours had power to them and so far Kakashi and she had had enough space to themselves to figure out what was happening between them without anyone interfering. Yuuka was in the perfect position to really ruin Sakura’s life. 

 

And the thing was, Sakura could see in Yuuka’s face that this wasn’t a bluff or a guess. Somehow, she knew. 

 

“The bed was made when the maid came in,” Sakura said, expression shuttered as she put her tea back down without drinking it. Yuuka smiled at her like she was being let in on a secret.

 

“Not like it’s done in the Haruno household,” she said and Sakura had to fight a wince.

 

While Sakura had learned different ways to make the bed—the usual shinobi utilitarian way they were taught at the Academy, the way her parents had taught her, and the way the maids at one of Kiri’s lords did for a particularly hard infiltration mission—Kakashi wouldn’t have known how to do it the way the Haruno’s did. The staff inside a house like this knew much more than they let on and Sakura had to wonder just how fast the news had made it to Yuuka.

 

She sighed, placing a bored expression on her face.

 

“Let me guess, Haruno-sama.” Sakura raised an eyebrow. “You want me to let go of my position as the Hokage’s apprentice and go back to living with my parents so I can be married off to someone that could bring the most benefits into the Haruno clan? Oh, I even know who. Tachibana Shinsei is still on the market for a wife, isn’t he?”

 

Sakura was barely done with her bored tirade before Yuuka burst out laughing. Her husky voice echoed in the room as she threw her head back and placed her tea on the table hurriedly so she wouldn’t spill on herself.

 

“Sakura,” Yuuka said when she composed herself, shocking Sakura. She was calling her by her name and not girl like she had taken to doing. “Look at yourself. You’re a Haruno woman through and through. I couldn’t be prouder. With the amount of influence you garnered in your short years as a shinobi, it would be stupid of me to make an enemy out of you. ”

 

Sakura gaped at her great aunt, not knowing how to react. Her hands were briefly covered by the older woman’s before she retreated into her cup and gave Sakura a smile.

 

“I know my little sister had always been dutiful to a fault towards the clan and that it passed onto your father in some ways. With your mother as strict and unmoving as she is, it’s no surprise they drove you away.” Yuuka took a sip of her tea and shrugged. “Stupid, the both of them. We can only hope they try and make things right before it’s too late. I’m not stupid.”

 

Sakura stared at her clan head more curiously than before, trying to decipher everything the woman was surely hiding from her. Her parents had treated this woman like a goddess among men, someone to admire and fear in equal parts and whose mere presence ensured they followed through with their duty. 

 

“What if your son doesn’t have an heir?” Sakura found herself asking finally. This has been the root of all problems, hasn’t it? Her parents thought she had to get ready to be the heir just like her father had in case Yuuka’s son didn’t sire an heir. 

 

Yuuka scoffed.

 

“He’ll have a child, I’m sure of it.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “If he doesn’t, your parents are still young they could try for another. And there’s always room for me to adopt one of the shop owners into the main branch. There’s plenty of them who would fit the role quite well. Just make sure my little sister never hears what I’m saying, she’s such a stickler for the rules.”

 

Yuuka smiled mischievously at Sakura and for the first time she found the actual urge to return that smile. Sakura hid her grin behind her teacup as she took a few sips but Yuuka’s smile had grown and Sakura knew she’d seen it.

 

“You’re not at all like what I remember from my childhood,” Sakura said at last.

 

“Neither are you, girl. You were a meek little thing back then, getting chastised for hiding behind your mother’s skirts.” Yuuka winked at her. “I dare say running away was the best decision you’ve ever made.”

 

Sakura hummed and continued sipping her tea, feeling somewhat lighter. While she had never been close to her great aunt, having someone from her family praise her and admire her for who she’d become was highly gratifying. Even though Sakura tried not to be affected by it, she let the feeling wash over her, warming up her chest as it went.

 

“Let me tell you a story, girl,” Yuuka said when their first pot of tea was gone and she had called for another maid. 

 

The two of them sat there for the next hour while Yuuka told her story. She’d had an older brother who was raised to be the heir to the Haruno clan so she had always indulged in her wild side, knowing not much responsibility would fall on her shoulders. When her brother died before having a child, Yuuka was forced to take over when she was seventeen. 

 

By then she was already married and had just delivered her son. Since her own parents had been alive at the time, she had been given time to calmly settle into her new family before taking over. When her son was four, however, and just a week before her husband would officially become the head of their clan, he had struck her son.

 

According to Yuuka he had always shown a violent side, some of it being what had attracted Yuuka to him in the first place. However, he had been showing progressive levels of aggression towards her little family and when she had gotten home that fateful day to see her son cowering with marks on his arms and her husband standing over him with a shinai, Yuuka had flipped.

 

She had waited until two months after he had been made clan head so that there were no possibilities for the position to be given to her sister and her husband who had already given birth to Sakura’s father at the time and then she struck.

 

“I poisoned his morning tea without another thought,” Yuuka said, the smile on her face sharp and conspiratorial. “The poison was one of ours, something they had been experimenting on in Iwa to use as a perfume but if you added belladonna to it, became deadly.”

 

The grin on her face made Sakura wonder if Yuuka also didn’t have an Inner who would help her make decisions like these and carry through with them and another distant part of her began to wonder if it even was something she could have inherited from her family. 

 

“No autopsy?” Sakura asked, sounding slightly impressed because she was. 

 

“There’s no need for that when the crying widow is telling you how bad his eating habits were and the history of heart attacks his family had, is there?” Yuuka replied. Her voice was casual but the glint in her jade eyes was decidedly mean and Sakura was torn between feeling horrified and the sudden wave of kinship she felt towards the older woman.

 

She could understand that violent need to protect. There is nothing Sakura wouldn’t consider doing to keep those she loved safe, she could only imagine the kind of drive Yuuka had to protect her small and defenceless son back then. So Sakura simply shrugged and went back to her tea.

 

“Good riddance,” she said quietly, shooting her great aunt a small grin and making the woman bark an unbridled laugh. 

 

“There’s no denying we are family, girl.” Yuuka poured the last of the tea for herself and called for a maid to bring another one. “I hope you know you can count on me for whatever you need.”

 

She looked at Sakura with raised eyebrows as if daring her to contradict what she said. Sakura cleared her throat awkwardly, not really knowing how to deal with this kind of support after years and years of feeling inadequate in the eyes of her family. She ended up just nodding slightly, reverting to her manners instinctively.

 

“Hai, obaa-sama.”

 

“Don’t be so serious, girl!” Yuuka laughed again before extracting a pipe hidden in the long sleeves of her kimono. “Have a smoke with me and tell me about Sakumo’s handsome boy.”

 

Sakura spent the morning trying to avoid saying too much while being quite honestly peer pressured into smoking and talking about boys. Bizarrely so. It was a relief when Nohime came back with Kakashi in tow even if she couldn’t quite meet his gaze with Yuuka’s teasing remarks fresh in her mind.  

 

They made their way outside Kamisu before lunchtime and the women had once again slept through their travels. This time at least, Sakura and Kakashi could enjoy themselves with the packed lunch the maids had prepared for them. Sakura indulged herself with a cigarette while attaching herself with chakra to the roof of the carriage.

 

Despite it getting progressively colder the farther north they went, Sakura circled chakra to keep her warm and smoked her cigarette as she tried to sort through everything her great aunt had told her that day. 

 

She took a few moments to herself, finished another cigarette and then came back down through one of the tiny windows. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her as he read his book. Sakura simply sat down next to him, not bothering with pretences as she scooted closer to him until she could bury her nose in his shoulder. She breathed in his scent while he passed a page and then she spoke.

 

“My great aunt murdered her husband because he hit her son,” she whispered into the fabric of his shirt. 

 

“Oh?” Kakashi said, somehow sounding bored and amused at the same time as if she had just told him something funny but mundane.

 

“Yeah.” Sakura nodded against his arm, maybe a few too many times until she realised she was practically rubbing against him like a cat. “Everything seems okay out there, by the way. I saw Hideki through the trees for a while.”

 

“Aa,” Kakashi said, turning another page. 

 

Sakura closed her eyes fully and turned her focus towards her chakra. She entered the same meditative state she had learned how to train with years ago and focused on calming her breaths, her heartbeat and her chakra flow. While like this, it was easy to extend her senses outwards to keep track of any threats around them. She stayed like that for a few minutes before Kakashi interrupted her.

 

“Are you asleep, Sakura-chan?” he teased and Sakura frowned even though she knew he wouldn’t see it.

 

“I’m meditating, you idiot. This way I can sense any threats better.” She pinched his thigh slightly and moved quickly before he could smack her hand. “There’s also a plus that it can kind of trick my body into thinking I’m actually resting.”

 

The lack of sleep was beginning to catch up to the two of them. While during a mission they could keep going for a long time, especially ANBU missions, this was different. During those missions, they had adrenaline, high levels of cortisol and brief periods where they could be absolutely at ease while their team took watch. This was infinitely worse.

 

They didn’t have any type of outlet for their energy, no type of fight that would get their blood flowing and their adrenaline sparking whatsoever. At the same time, they were only getting about three hours of sleep every day while still being on relatively high alert. Sakura wanted to either fight someone or go home already. She had Kakashi’s party to plan after all.

 

Her hand sought his skin without her consent. One minute she was trying to focus on her meditation and the next she was feeling her fingertips closing over his forearm between his shirt and gloves. Sakura instinctively matched her chakra’s waves to his and guided his system into entering the meditative state she had achieved.

 

After a few minutes, Kakashi moved. Sakura thought he was moving away from her and was getting ready to retreat when she realised what he was doing. He closed Icha Icha and put it back into his pouch before taking off the gloves he was wearing. He grabbed her hand in his, interlocking their fingers and waiting for her to match their chakra again.

 

When she found her stride, Kakashi relaxed back against her, his head coming to lay on top of hers. Sakura focused on their joint meditation for the rest of the journey and she wondered if she had hallucinated when he pressed his nose briefly to the crown of her head. 

Notes:

I had Haruno Yuuka in my head for a loooong time. At first she was supposed to be very much the imposing figure Kizashi made her out to be but not even halfway through I changed my mind and had Sakura's grandmother play that role instead. I hope you guys enjoy her character as much as I do, next chapter there will be more... revelations about her. ;)

The KakaSaku action is starting to pick up a bit and I absolutely LOVE where it's going xD At first I wanted them to just.... well, bang and get over it, really, but I changed my mind (yeah, it's a common theme with me lol) and wrote another fic where that happened to satisfy my need for it. I love that explosive coming together trope and then dealing with the aftermath BUT this fic became so much more than that, it didn't feel right doing it like that. So I give you slightly angsty, definitely fluffy coming together until the filth comes full force. They're not quite there yet, there's so much happening all around them, but things are definitely happening lol. Please let me know what you think! I know some of you don't even ship KakaSaku (actually quite a few of you? I'm interested in what brought you guys here!!) so let me know what you think of this direction I'm taking them.

I'm... immensely happy that I can explore the Haruno clan further. You guys have no idea. :P

On another note, thank you so much for engaging like you guys do? I know some of you weren't satisfied with Shizune last chapter and all that but it never fails to amaze me how much you guys care about this story. It's like a stranger in the street complimenting my baby lmfao, it makes me soft bc I know you guys don't fucking owe me anything so... yeah. Thanks <3 I absolutely loved hearing those tidbits of info about you guys??? Please, feel free to keep doing that if you are comfortable with it. This year has been terrible to all of us and honestly this story is one of the few things that's kept me going and it makes me so unbelievably happy that I can give you guys a bit of constancy and something to look forward to when things are just so fucking uncertain. If you're interested in knowing how things are going over here just do a quick research on how Brazil is dealing with Covid and you'll see lol I had to stop watching the news bc it was getting too much for me. But yeah, you guys always help me whenever I see a review or someone sends me an ask on Tumblr or whatever. Again, thank you.

Okay funny story now. I read a comment on this fic saying the person found it through tiktok and just... forgot about it for a few weeks maybe? But I woke up again with that comment in my head and went looking for it and it's... gone???? So the question remains if I dreamt about it or if someone really did say that to me LMFAO. I have no grasp of reality anymore. You guys, I suck at keeping up with this fic's image, the peeps who follow me on Tumblr know I frequently forget to make promoting posts about it and shit so if you see smth out there on the internet about this pls let me know so I can thank the person xD

Happy Fire Friday and have a nice weekend, all <3

Chapter 42: Hinote no Shuto

Notes:

It's Fire Friday, bitchezzzz

Sorry for the delay today, this bitch is BUSY. Btw did you guys see how I answered many comments last chapter? Ha! Take that depression. *insert a "could a depressed bitch w anxiety do this" meme*

More Yuuka being Yuuka and they reach the Fire Capitol :P

They arrived in Katori around sunset. It was a small village that Sakura had never been to but it looked like it didn’t have a very active night scene which immediately made her love it. When they checked in to a fancy ryokan, hope flared wildly in her chest. Maybe they would finally have a quiet night. They were close to their sixties, surely women their age that had spent the last three days up all night and napping the morning away would reach a breaking point at one point. Surely.

 

They were led by a polite if nervous nakai towards the daimyo suite, the young woman wringing her hands all the way there. It was a huge room much like the one Sakura had stayed in with the Tachibana brothers back in her first mission as a chunin, but this one was even larger and even fancier. The two older women insisted on Kakashi and Sakura joining them for lunch in the common room and they easily accepted, getting used to their particular quirks and general disregard for proper etiquette. 

 

The food was delicious and it almost sent Sakura into a food coma. After it was over, she settled with Kakashi into a routine for the two of them where one of them would stay with the women as they enjoyed the market of the tiny village during daytime while the other would do a perimeter check and check in with Hideki and Nohime’s guards. Then when night fell, the other would take that role while the women settled in the ryokan to play games with the guests and have dinner.

 

When dinner was finished, Sakura and Kakashi started escorting the two women back towards their room but they stopped before turning the corner into the hallway that would lead them to the daimyo suite.

 

“We have a private party to attend tonight, the two of you can have the night off,” Yuuka said, dismissing them with a wave of her hand.

 

Sakura chuckled a little, placed her hands on her hips beneath her haori and raised an eyebrow at her rebellious great aunt.

 

“You know we can’t do that, Yuuka-sama,” Sakura said. Nohime looked nervous and Sakura could only imagine where they were going that they didn’t want any others to see. “As captain, it will be my ass on the line if anything happens to the two of you.”

 

“Sakura,” Yuuka said, huffing a breath that made her bright red hair flutter around her green eyes. “This is an extremely private party with guards and the like. Only someone with an invitation gets in and I doubt anyone would choose that way to kill us.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and stared seriously at her great aunt, telling her with her expression that she wasn’t budging on this. No matter how tired she really was, Sakura would never jeopardise a mission because of it.

 

“Are the guards high level shinobi?” she asked.

 

“No,” Yuuka answered, her face already contorting into a pout now that she could see Sakura wouldn’t back down easily. It looked positively hilarious on her matured face.

 

“Then they won’t know we’re there.” Sakura raised her chin slightly, daring them to contradict her. Yuuka stared her down with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before nodding and pursing her lips.

 

“Fine, do what you like.” She waved her hand and turned on her heels gracefully before starting down the hallway, Nohime just a step behind.

 

“Yuuka…” The daimyo’s wife whispered uncertainly but Sakura’s trained ears picked it up easily as she followed behind them. Sakura turned her head slightly so she could see that Kakashi seemed to also be paying attention to what the two women were discussing.

 

“Don’t worry, Kicho-chan,” Yuuka said with a pat on the other woman’s shoulder. “We can trust the two of them.”

 

Sakura exchanged a look with Kakashi at that. What were they hiding? Well, it really didn’t matter in the long run. Sakura used her usual almost chakra-less genjutsu to make herself become invisible and placed her hand on Kakashi’s wrist.

 

“Do you want me to take care of it?” she asked him quietly. Kakashi’s eye roved over her but didn’t fixate on anything and Sakura knew he was contemplating the fact that he couldn’t see her. Since her genjutsu would take a lot less chakra, she figured she’d offer. Knowing their clients, they would be there for at least a few hours. Kakashi nodded and Sakura sent a coat of chakra to activate the genjutsu over him. 

 

She masked her chakra and Kakashi followed suit. When Yuuka turned back towards them, she gasped making Nohime do so as well, her eyes wide.

 

“Sakura…?” Yuuka asked hesitantly and Sakura chuckled. Her great aunt immediately glared around the hallway and scoffed. “Of course. Ninjas.” She rolled her eyes but turned around to continue walking down the hall. “I just wanted to give you another chance to back off. This might be too much for you.”

 

Sakura raised an eyebrow even though no one would be able to see it. She kept her hand on Kakashi’s wrist, not wanting to accidentally bump into him while they were trying to be discrete. After a few seconds, he drew his hand up, Sakura’s following along with his and she could hear the sound of the metal plate on his hitai-ate. He was going to use his Sharingan to keep track of her.

 

It was a good idea for now that they were en route but as soon as they settled somewhere, she would have to insist he drop the hitai-ate back down. It would be no use to have a chakra depleted Kakashi right now, especially since the prospect of sleep was something Sakura was beginning to accept would only happen when they went back home. 

 

“We’re professionals,” Sakura assured her great aunt. “You won’t even know we’re there.”

 

Yuuka laughed as if it had been a joke and Nohime seemed to flush but they could see the end of the hall now and didn’t retort. It was easy to slip by the armed duo guarding the double doors as they checked Yuuko and Nohime’s invitations and then the four of them were inside.

 

It was a spacious room, much like the one the other guests had convened for games earlier and Sakura quickly took to the rafters. There were about five guests inside already and they were all dressed in fine silk and expensive jewellery much like Yuuka and Nohime. They chatted and drank while an ensemble of musicians played slow traditional songs in one corner. 

 

Sakura sat herself down facing one side and Kakashi squeezed a code into her forearm as he settled facing the other side. Safe. Well, she agreed. This seemed to be merely a dinner party between very important rich people. She watched carefully as an hour passed and eleven more people arrived but found no traces of hidden weapons, guards, or shinobi. They were indeed safe.

 

It was another half an hour later that the music changed. The lights, which had already been dim, darkened even further as the songs turned slower, headier. It was only when she watched as the two men that had been talking to Yuuka and Nohime started kissing each other and fell back on the cushions that Sakura realised what was happening.

 

The room that had at first seemed too relaxed for a dinner party with many lounges, cushions, and an excessive amount of mirrors and hidden nooks suddenly made sense. It was meant to be a comfortable space because this was a sex club. Sakura’s great aunt had taken the daimyo’s wife to a sex party. And, well, now the two women were kissing. Many other things became clear to Sakura then.

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she muttered. This far up and speaking lowly they wouldn’t be overheard, especially with the music still playing and the beginnings of enthusiastic noises from the participants. 

 

Kakashi chuckled lowly and Sakura felt his arm brush her shoulder.

 

“First time in an orgy, Sakura-chan?” he teased her and Sakura smirked even as her cheeks warmed.

 

“Is it yours?” Sakura countered, because despite that one threesome she had with two Takigakure nin she met on a joint mission about a year ago, she hadn’t been in an orgy before. 

 

“No,” Kakashi said simply, somehow managing to surprise her and confirm her expectations at the same time. “This is a fairly common occurrence among nobility. Although I’ve never heard of it happening in this particular village, it does fit the pattern.”

 

“You think this would be a hot spot for a hit?” she asked, bringing their attention back to the fact that they were on a mission but keeping relaxed since they hadn’t felt any presence of another shinobi. With the way Sakura was coating the place with a slight sheen of chakra, it would be impossible for anyone to get in without her knowing.

 

“Not for an assassination. If there’s enough incidents like that people will stop coming to events like these,” Kakashi answered, his voice low and rumbly but it felt loud somehow in her ear. Sakura fought the urge to press closer to him until she could feel all of him on her arm. “This is the best spot for an infiltration mission, however. Establish rapport here, befriend the target, secure a meeting in another location, and then go for the kill.”

 

Sakura watched the scene below her for a few seconds, trying to keep her eyes off their clients and focusing on checking for threats and cataloguing the people inside the place. After a quiet pause, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to continue the conversation.

 

“Was that how you came upon your orgy?” Sakura asked, amusement coating her tone. Despite the fact that Kakashi was a notorious pervert around the village for reading Icha Icha in public, Sakura now knew the truth that he wasn’t just constantly reading porn while going grocery shopping, and although she knew he was an extremely capable shinobi, he fidgeted beside her.

 

“Yes,” he whispered after a few seconds. Kakashi cleared his throat slightly and continued in a more confident voice, “There was this couple, close friends of a minor lord that were suspected of stealing from him. My job was to get close to them, infiltrate their homes and gather proof of the betrayal. There were a few others but only one I had to kill later.”

 

Sakura hummed thoughtfully, thousands of scenarios running through her mind. How old was he when he had his first honeypot mission? She imagined an eighteen year old Kakashi, unfairly pretty and with muscles any man would die for, seducing an attractive couple into having him for the night. And the fact that he had said it was an orgy and not a threesome indicated that more than the couple had been involved. Sakura wondered if there had been another man involved or if the fourth person was another woman. She wondered if Kakashi had enjoyed it, and then Sakura had to shut down that train of thought when a shiver threatened to break through.

 

“I’ve only ever been with two women before,” Sakura admitted, feeling like she kind of owed a private fact about herself since he was being so uncharacteristically forthcoming, and also because she didn’t want to end the conversation. She added as an afterthought, “I prefer men, though.”

 

Kakashi chuckled again at her candid tone and this time when he pressed his arm against hers, neither of them backed away. 

 

“Me too,” he said at last.

 

“Prefer men?” Sakura turned her head so fast she heard her neck crack but Kakashi only chuckled again, this time bumping against her.

 

“Been with only a few men and prefer the opposite sex,” he clarified.

 

“Prefer women,” Sakura confirmed unnecessarily, her cheeks warming further. Sakura had lost all of her self consciousness when it came to sex after that first week with Shinsei, but something about talking about this with Kakashi and the images it put into her head was enough to make her flustered.

 

“ Yes , Sakura-chan,” Kakashi teased again and Sakura fought the urge to punch him. Why did he have to be so fucking irritating when all she could think of was of those few men he was referring to? 

 

The sounds from the room beneath them were getting louder, some of the people reaching their climaxes while others still talked and drank and fucked. Despite herself, Sakura was feeling the beginnings of arousal stir low in her belly. She was on a mission and she was focused on any possible threats, sure, but the sights and sounds from beneath them and Kakashi being so easygoing and teasing were a dangerous combination.

 

It was a few minutes later that she noticed an inconsistency in the room. For a second, she held her breath as the chakra net she had cast around the room detected the subtle churn of a chakra disturbance. In the next second she relaxed because it was coming from Kakashi.

 

“What are you doing with your chakra?” she asked, tilting her head towards him even though she wouldn’t be able to see him. She felt the chakra he had been moving stop abruptly before continuing.

 

“I’m circling it,” he offered, not exactly answering her question. 

 

Sakura focused on what he was doing for a second, realising then that he had been circling the chakra into a specific point. His pelvis. Was he—

 

“No way, you can do that…?” Sakura said, not sure she was asking him or not. Kakashi didn’t answer her, only hummed noncommittally and continued on his merry way circling his chakra to prevent a boner.

 

She had learned how to manipulate chakra to stimulate nerve endings to give her partners better orgasms with little to no effort, but she had never thought that the opposite could be done. Of course, if someone would have figured it out it would be Kakashi.

 

Sakura immediately tried it on herself, not necessarily circling the chakra like he did but moving the chakra deep inside her to regulate the blood flow and inhibit the glands from working and producing fluids. It was a neater job than his, one no one would be able to tell but she still snorted.

 

“You know, I’ve always wondered how it was that you walked around the village reading porn without getting a hard on,” Sakura commented drily and Kakashi huffed an amused breath but didn’t answer her. “I guess I have my answer now.”

 

“I thought we established I wasn’t always reading Icha Icha ,” he said after a while, speaking slightly louder when a particularly wanton moan sounded from beneath them.

 

“Not always but some of the time, right?” Sakura asked and giggled lowly to herself when he hummed. Sakura sighed and briefly passed her eyes over where Yuuka and Nohime were sharing a man, she rolled them upwards. “My great aunt is fucking the daimyo’s wife.”

 

Kakashi hummed.

 

“My great aunt, who killed her husband, is the daimyo’s wife’s lover. ”

 

Kakashi hummed again.

 

“I thought you didn’t like that word?” he asked, clearly amused at the personal crisis she was going through.

 

“I don’t. It’s creepy,” she said immediately. She felt his shoulder vibrate with laughter but didn’t hear any sound so she knew he was trying to suppress it. The bastard.

 

A few more minutes passed as Sakura kept cooling herself down and paying attention to the fact that Kakashi was actively trying to distract himself from getting aroused by the sex party beneath them. She wondered for a minute what had happened for the woman that had cried out from behind her to be so enthusiastic in her sounds and then realised that Kakashi could see it.

 

His chakra worked harder, making Sakura smirk and really really wish she could turn around to watch the scene that had made him react like that. From the continuous sounds from the woman and the fact that they definitely didn’t seem to be faked, she guessed something pretty intense was going on. Was he into kinky shit? Most shinobi were in one way or another, it wasn’t a far fetched thought. Kakashi looked to be someone who was always in control in the bedroom and didn’t relegate power easily. 

 

Her eyes passed a mirror on her side that caught another mirror that caught the aforementioned woman. She was lithe and young, probably in her early twenties, her hair a golden mess down her shoulders. There was a man before her, kneeling at her feet with his head buried between her thighs.

 

The position of the man was completely submissive but looking closer, Sakura could see that it was quite the opposite. He was holding almost all of her weight up, his hands on her hips as he prevented her from shying away. The woman’s cries rose in pitch and intensity and Sakura feared she would just keel over before the man rose to his feet. 

 

In the next second, he had turned her around and pushed her onto the table she had been leaning against. Sakura had only caught a glance at the gleam of a buttplug before he slapped a heavy hand on her ass and entered her from behind in one smooth move. 

 

Yeah, definitely nothing submissive about him. 

 

Sakura sighed heavily, trying to focus on something else other than the fact that her mind was changing the woman’s hair to her natural pink and the man’s salt and pepper one to Kakashi’s silver. Her eyes caught Yuuka briefly before she diverted them and snorted.

 

“I guess there’s a positive side to having gone through menopause,” she said jokingly and was glad that Kakashi seemed equally eager to distract himself.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yep, no condoms but still no babies,” she said, shrugging slightly against his shoulder. She felt the slight tremor that went through him then but tried to pay it no mind. 

 

“You don’t need to worry about getting pregnant either, right?” he asked, his voice carefully controlled. “The village provides contraceptives for the kunoichi.”

 

“Yeah,” Sakura said, her voice getting more distracted as she felt him press closer to her. It was just a millimetre closer, it could have been him merely adjusting himself on the rafters but Sakura knew Kakashi and she knew that everything about him was deliberate. Sakura let him press closer and crossed the arm further away from him over her stomach so her hand dangled over her hip between their bodies. She tried to continue their conversation. “It’s a hassle, though, and no method is a hundred per cent effective. We can choose between the shots or the seal but those have to be applied again every three months. Not that I do those.”

 

“You don’t?” Kakashi asked, his voice surprised but still managing to sound nonchalant to the sounds of pleasure beneath them. Sakura knew better. He had kept his chakra circling nonstop.

 

“Hmm.” Sakura finally took his wrist between her fingers, feeling and thoroughly enjoying the way he tensed. “I can control my cycles with iryo-ninjutsu and prevent any sperm from surviving.”

 

Sakura applied her chakra to his system, reapplying the thin layer of genjutsu now that over two hours had passed. Kakashi tensed even further but when he noticed what she was doing, he relaxed. 

 

“Handy,” he muttered and she didn’t know if he was talking about her genjutsu or her contraceptive skills. It didn’t matter either way, Sakura was far too preoccupied with something else. 

 

She finished up with her genjutsu and dove further inside his system, his chakra naturally welcoming hers and feeling familiar beneath her hold. Kakashi’s chakra was just like him, white electric heat, overwhelming waves of it lying dormant but never too out of reach from a full attack. She could feel the drain of the Sharingan immediately but kept her chakra away from the upper half of his body. 

 

Sakura felt him relax against her, the usual mixing of their chakras as comforting for him as it was for her. She waited until his posture relaxed further against her before moving to what had been her original plan. It was easy to let her chakra move towards his pelvis, regulating the blood flow there but much better than he’d been able to even without direct touch. 

 

“Aah,” Kakashi said after she took over to cool him down. “I see you’ve caught on to some rather unorthodox use of chakra.”

 

Sakura chuckled but didn’t say much else. They were toeing the edge of that invisible line between them for a while now and she didn’t want to tip them either way for the moment. She was quite content in testing their limits for now, especially since they weren’t in the safety of their village. She wanted to let things take their flow for the time being at least.

 

“I didn’t think you’d be able to do that with just a touch to my wrist,” he said when she didn’t reply, sounding impressed. “And you have most of your chakra masked. It’s impressive.”

 

Sakura felt her chest warm at his praise. She couldn’t help the grin that took over her face as she bumped his shoulder with hers.

 

“Impressive, huh?” she teased and he snorted.

 

“Don’t let it get to your head, hime .”

 

Sakura felt a shiver go down her spine at that but she forced herself not to pay it any mind. They were in a delicate situation and she didn’t want to distract them further. Instead, Sakura changed the subject and kept a steady stream of conversation between them with safe topics. They stayed up there in the rafters until the sun came up, Sakura renewing Kakashi’s genjutsu every couple of hours and the both of them trying to keep the conversation going and not pay any more attention than necessary to the party below them. 

 

When they followed their clients to their suite for breakfast, Sakura was tired but her body had been trained to withstand all of the stress of not sleeping and she knew she and Kakashi would endure. 

 

The two of them had sat across their clients and kept a straight face while Sakura ate primly and Kakashi gobbled insane amounts at a time when no one was looking. It was only after most of the rich breakfast spread was gone that Nohime broke the silence.

 

“I believe some explanation may be necessary,” she said, her sweet polite voice just barely strained. She exchanged a look with Yuuka before focusing back on Sakura and Kakashi. “I have never cheated on my husband.”

 

Sakura fought the urge to raise an eyebrow at the woman and merely turned an attentive and nonjudgmental expression towards her. She wasn’t here to judge and Sakura had seen pictures of the daimyo before, she knew if she had been in her position and forced into marriage by her parents, she would probably have done something similar.

 

“What Kicho means is that the two of them have an arrangement,” Yuuka stepped in, probably sensing that the other woman wasn’t completely comfortable going forward. “They have had the arrangement since their first month of marriage, and this is a trip the both of us take with his knowledge.”

 

Kakashi hummed from beside her and Sakura smiled her polite diplomatic smile.

 

“It’s really none of our business, Nohime-sama,” Sakura said gently, trying to put the matter to rest. Instead of it comforting the woman, it did the opposite. Nohime pursed her lips slightly, her beautifully mature features contorting unhappily as her eyes shined.

 

“You’re Yuuka’s niece, of course your opinion matters, Sakura-hime,” Nohime said and Sakura was surprised to hear the deference the woman used when speaking to her, and the fact that she seemed to genuinely care about her great aunt. The type of devotion in her voice came from years of companionship and great love. Sakura wondered if this ‘arrangement’ had been going since the first month of the daimyo’s marriage, and if so, how long have the two women been together like this. 

 

“The Daimyo is a gay man, Sakura.” Sakura’s expression blanked as Kakashi coughed delicately behind a closed fist most likely having been mid bite. “He keeps his lover in the royal court and Kicho is free to do as she pleases. They sired a few heirs to take care of business but their marriage is strictly political.”

 

Sakura immediately sent her chakra in a small pulse to check for listening ears. This was absolutely not something that should be discussed in a random ryokan like this, especially since Sakura had discovered the practical aspects of a place like this. If what Kakashi had said was correct, then these kinds of places that catered to certain activities were sure to have a few eager ears listening in to things they shouldn’t.

 

“We appreciate your candour, Nohime-sama, Haruno-sama,” Kakashi said, ever polite and sounding not at all like himself, “but it’s wise to keep these matters discussed in places better protected than this.”

 

“Call me Yuuka, Kakashi-kun,” Yuuka said. “You’re fucking my niece. I don’t think we should be so distant with each other, do you?”

 

The silence in the room was immediate. Sakura was horrified to see that Yuuka used her most teasing tone, the one she had been using all throughout the trip to flirt with people in the casinos. Granted, this one was more playfully flirtatious, but it still was weird seeing that look being directed at Kakashi, especially with the blank wall that was his expression.

 

“Yuuka-sama,” Sakura warned, her eyes flashing. “We’re not fucking.”

 

Yuuka rolled her eyes, apparently immune to the tension around the table.

 

“Kids these days.” She waved her hand. “In my time, one didn’t stay the night with another if it wasn’t because of that.”

 

“Romantic,” Sakura snorted, slightly amused despite her galloping heartbeat.

 

“Oh, is this what this is about?” Yuuka challenged, placing her elbows on the table rudely but still managing to look prim while doing it. “Are you two romancing each other then?”

 

Sakura gave a long suffering sigh, already imagining how far Kakashi would pull back after this. They were getting there, damn it, pushing him to admit anything would only do more harm. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if begging some kind of deity for patience for the hard work cut out for her.

 

“We’re partners,” Kakashi said. His voice was firm, leaving no room for arguments and it shocked Sakura to her core. 

 

Because, yes, they were partners in the sense that they were in this mission together and that even before then they had worked together and trained alongside the other. Except, inexplicably, Kakashi’s words held more meaning than that. 

 

When she turned her head toward him to shoot him a surprised look, he was already looking at her and that alone confirmed his words had a deeper meaning. Sakura felt her chest fill with warmth and affection towards this wonderful man. She couldn’t help the tiny smile that pulled at the corner of her lips.

 

“We’re partners.” She nodded. “We’re pack.”

 

This was the first time either of them had acknowledged the fact that indeed they were a part of each other’s packs and that meant so much, Sakura could hardly put it into words. Kakashi’s eye crinkled at the corner with a hidden smile and Sakura could tell this one was genuine. 

 

She turned back to their clients, almost missing the fond look they were exchanging. 

 

“Finish your breakfast, we’re already behind schedule,” she said more strictly, already rising to her feet to get ready for their departure.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

They hit the road before nine but had some trouble getting out of the village since many other caravans were heading out as well. Kaede was with them that morning and Sakura kept her chakra checking up on the guards the whole time. 

 

They stopped at a small village for Yuuka to check the market but since there were no Haruno shops there, they moved on shortly after eating lunch. At night, they stopped at Kawagawe, a city much like Hasaki with taller buildings than there were in Konoha and a bustling nightlife. Even the way the locals talked sounded faster than what Sakura was used to. 

 

Sakura let Kaede go back to the Oyamatsumi Mountain and called on Yukari to keep watch while the four of them settled into another daimyo suite and spent another night at the casino on the first floor of the hotel. 

 

Sakura and Kakashi retired to their shared room around four in the morning and barely bothered to remove their outer layer of clothes before falling into bed. Sakura fell asleep tangled around Kakashi and woke up with her nose buried in his neck, his scent overwhelmingly good. 

 

It stayed with her even as she showered for the day, even as they spent another mind numbing morning stuck inside the caravan with Yuuka and Nohime napping in the bedroom. It felt like he was everywhere but instead of freaking her out like it had the week before, Sakura felt looser and more comfortable with him. 

 

She sat with her legs on his lap as she sprawled back on the cushions and closed her eyes. Focusing on expanding her chakra net to keep track of everything going on outside kept her from falling asleep and she managed to rest her eyes. 

 

She was deep into her meditation, focused entirely on chakra flow and the feeling of Hotaka—called that early morning—moving ahead of the caravan. When she felt a hand on her ankle, she had to fight hard to keep from doing a full body flinch. Her next breath stuttered in her lungs and she tensed briefly but then Kakashi slid his hand a bit further up and, with two fingers on either side of her achilles tendon, he started massaging her. Sakura instinctively relaxed into his hold.

 

A small sigh left her as he pressed gently on the muscle of her calf. He was working her with just one hand and Sakura got curious enough to open one eye to check what he was doing with the other. Icha Icha Violence. Or at least a book with the same red sleeve.

 

Sakura snorted and Kakashi paused briefly in his ministrations before he turned the page and picked it up again.

 

“Have a nice nap?” he asked lazily.

 

“I wasn’t taking a nap, idiot,” she mumbled tiredly and without heat. “I’m meditating, keeping a look outside.”

 

“Hmm.” Kakashi stopped his hand and turned his head slowly to look at her, his temple resting on the cushion behind him. “That’s impressive.”

 

Sakura remembered him saying the same thing the day before and a sudden strike of heat shot through her. She opened both eyes now to look at him fully but kept to the pile of goo she had been reduced to, both her gaze and voice as lazy as his.

 

“It’s just chakra control,” she said, giving him a tiny smile. 

 

Kakashi’s gaze turned sharper, almost admonishing. 

 

“It’s perfect chakra control, Sakura,” he said, his voice making her thighs twitch unconsciously. “I don’t think any ninja can do what you can with your chakra. I have no doubt that you’re the best kunoichi in Konoha.”

 

Sakura’s chest warmed again from his praise and she wiggled her toes to draw attention away from her burning cheeks. Feeling nice and lazy and undeniably good , Sakura moved her chakra to mingle with his through his hand on her leg. 

 

Kakashi exhaled harshly, his fingers tightening on her calf in surprise before he continued his impromptu massage session. It wasn’t long before they stopped for lunch at a roadside café but during the twenty minutes it took, Kakashi and Sakura stayed silent, enjoying the feeling of her chakra mingling with his, drawing it out to connect with the net she had spread out around them to keep watch.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Kakashi wondered to himself how exactly he got there. He had been feeling strangely unworried about his current predicament and that in itself was what was worrying him. Sakura had buried herself under his skin in a way that he could never have predicted, in a way that took his breath away if he thought about it too hard. 

 

So his response had been not to think about it at all. 

 

After the mission it had taken him a while to come to terms with what had happened and that the reason he couldn’t have a good night’s sleep—especially his sudden aversion to his bed which seemed impossibly large for a slightly bigger than average single—was because she wasn’t there with him. 

 

Some people forgot what Kakashi was at his core. He was a wolf pup, raised by a wolf man and his wolves, and that connection ran deeper than having a better sense of smell than the Inuzuka’s. The Hatake wolfiness made itself known in how they related to others, either keeping to themselves completely or forming deep meaningful bonds with their comrades. 

 

Kakashi had considered few people to actually be his pack, his family. In a sense, the whole village fell under the category of home, community, but those who were his actual pack had been few and far between.

 

The first time he had opened himself up for that after his dad had been Minato-sensei and later on Team Minato. Losing them had not killed him by a mere technicality. Kakashi had lived his life after their loss looking for an honourable death in the field, moving through life like a ghost. 

 

The kinship he had found in Genma, Gai, and Tenzo had made his late teens more bearable, the role Usui had taken in his life ultimately what had saved him from himself. He had been slightly better by the time the Sandaime had taken him out of the forces despite what Gai and his jounin friends had thought at the time.

 

Team 7 had snuck under his defences like no other. The need to protect them ran deep inside Kakashi’s veins and made his Will of Fire burn brighter than it had in almost a decade. Kakashi had slowly found a reason not only to fight but to survive, to come back home to people who needed him.

 

After the boys left, a part of Kakashi left with them. It was like some of his fire had been smothered and the days started blurring together once again. He was taking mission after mission and in his head, Sakura had been safe in her role as a medic. 

 

He couldn’t have anticipated how she would change his entire fucking life. She made the fire inside him burn like an inferno, making him fight like never before not only to defeat his enemies or even to survive but to get to her, hold her in his arms and feel her scent once again.

 

The night she had come for him just a couple of days before they left on this new mission had felt inevitable. 

 

He should have guessed that’s where they were going but somehow it still managed to surprise him. Contrary to what Sakura believed, he wouldn’t have tried to avoid her again, at least not for the month he had been accused of. It was pointless to do so when she lived inside his chest, buried deep beneath his ribcage. 

 

He had needed some time to himself the day after but if they hadn’t been sent on this mission, he had no qualms in admitting he would have found her before the week was over. 

 

This mission, having her so close to him while being herself and not a made up character for an infiltration was like nothing else. Kakashi tried not to think about where this was heading because the thought of having someone like her would certainly drive him headfirst into a panic attack but he found that ignoring his wandering thoughts did wonders for his state of mind.

 

He closed the door on any thoughts that went further than what to do during the mission, tried to keep his mind in the present and saved his freaking out for later.

 

Sakura was lying with her eyes closed, her position inverted from before they had stopped for lunch with her head resting on his lap, her legs stretched so the tip of her toes touched the intricate drawing on the shoji doors. She had her eyes closed again like she had done during their last few trips in the caravan.

 

Her breathing when she was meditating was more controlled than what it usually was when she was truly asleep but it was close enough that Kakashi had wondered if she had actually decided to take a nap. He should have known better than to underestimate her. 

 

Sakura managed to impress him further at every turn and Kakashi couldn’t lie and say that he wasn’t completely entranced by her. Kakashi had been utterly overwhelmed by just how strong she was and how much she affected him but this mission had slowed down his frenzied state of mind some. 

 

It was as if being on a mission, albeit an easy one, had set the faulty wires in his brain that tended to hyper fixate on the smallest of details and lose hours upon hours thinking about the past. When he was on a mission, Kakashi was nothing if not focused and efficient. This one had put him in that mindset but it was so laughably easy that he could turn that focus elsewhere.

 

And with it, Kakashi felt that the right way to go about this… whatever it was between them, was to simply not do anything at all. 

 

He hadn’t been lying earlier in the day when he said that Sakura was his partner and it had felt good to hear her confirm that, yes, they were pack and they were family and, most of all, they were partners. 

 

Kakashi let one hand fall to her head, his fingers tangling with the pink locks easily, the silky strands sliding softly against his gloves. He wished for a fleeting second that they could have been back in Konoha’s warm weather so he could have taken off that barrier between them and could feel the softness of her tresses against his fingertips. 

 

Kakashi was keeping half his attention on the words in the book in front of his face and the other on Sakura when a sound brought him to attention. 

 

Sakura’s eyes opened immediately and locked with his and there it was again, a soft drawn out moan. Kakashi was stuck between feeling impressed by the two women’s sex-drive and annoyed they couldn’t have been satisfied with the orgy from the day before. Sakura apparently had decided to go with annoyed.

 

She groaned softly, screwing her eyes shut and turning on her side so she could bury her face on his shirt.

 

“Don’t they know the walls are literally paper thin?” she groaned into him and Kakashi breathed a chuckle.

 

He turned one page of his book but it was mostly for show because he hadn’t read a single word of that chapter. Sakura was right. The doors weren’t even the fusuma type from the ryokan, they were those flimsy shoji ones that barely held back any noise. 

 

“I believe they just figured we’ve seen everything already,” Kakashi said, tightening his hold slightly on her hair though he didn’t know if it was to comfort her or to keep her in place. “No use in hiding, is there?”

 

Sakura scoffed but Kakashi was immensely pleased to see she was making no move to get up. Another moan reached their trained ears, this one a bit louder than the last one and Sakura pulled back to glare at the ceiling. 

 

“Propriety? Common sense?” Sakura asked, seeming irritated by the sound of her voice but then she rolled her eyes and Kakashi saw she was smothering a smile. She turned to catch his eye. “Wanna stay upstairs?”

 

He didn’t. Kakashi had quite enjoyed having her on his lap, warm and pliant, her pretty hair sprawled all over his legs. He didn’t even bother saying no, though, because Sakura had already seemed to decide that’s what they were going to do and Kakashi didn’t have enough of a reason to stay there once she had climbed through the window. 

 

They sat back to back on top of the caravan, their legs crossed as Kakashi read and Sakura smoked. She offered to share with him and he was tempted to accept the offer but he didn’t want the guards accompanying the caravan in the trees to see his face so he kept his focus split between Icha Icha and the sun setting.

 

He mourned the loss of her weight on his lap and the cosy atmosphere inside the caravan. This far up north the weather was as cold as winter in Konoha, and Kakashi and Sakura were both circling their chakra to keep themselves warm while wearing their normal clothes. Kakashi was wearing a variation of the clothes he had worn for the beginning of the mission, only this time with a red scarf while Sakura had changed her shorts to black shinobi pants, a tight long sleeved shirt and her usual red haori. 

 

Kakashi consoled himself with the fact that he could at least feel her warm weight against his back.

.

 

.

 

.

 

The sun was just barely hanging on in the sky when they entered Sakurama. It was a quaint village, one that Sakura had explained the Haruno’s had a house in and it was immediately comforting to wander through the streets.

 

Unlike other villages, this one didn’t have the same sense of urgency to sell or the fast paced way of life. They arrived at what appeared to be the beginnings of a night festival and while the streets were filled with people, they all walked slowly, appreciating the cold night air.

 

The caravan stopped at another Haruno house and the two women who had napped and fucked the day away immediately set out to enjoy the festival. Kakashi wouldn’t say he was feeling jealous of the two of them but he couldn’t deny that it had been at least four months for him and things were getting difficult. 

 

Normally, he wouldn’t be reading Icha Icha out in the open, especially Violence that he hadn’t read enough to know it by heart. Kakashi mostly read Icha Icha on his bed or sprawled on his couch and other more informative books during his walks around the village or during missions. But.

 

No matter how much his restraint was ironclad, Kakashi was in the end simply a man who had spent the better part of two months sleeping next to the most amazing woman. One who wasn’t only sexually attractive but that he discovered stimulated him in all other ways. He needed the outlet Icha Icha provided, especially as she plastered herself to his arm while they walked two steps after Yuuka and Nohime.

 

“Can you even read with this light?” Sakura asked, tilting her head back to catch his eyes, but Kakashi kept his firmly on the pages in front of him. 

 

The sounds of a happy village drifted in the space between them with a particularly cold breeze that made Sakura squeeze herself tighter against him and Kakashi cursed the natural geology of the place that made it this cold in autumn .

 

“Perfectly,” he replied drily, earning himself the most endearing snort and an eye roll. 

 

He thought his response would let her know he wasn’t particularly feeling prone to conversation but Sakura didn’t seem to mind it. She pressed even closer and this time Kakashi had to physically keep himself from breathing in the scent of her hair as some of it caught on the fabric of his mask.

 

“What are you reading?” she asked, not quite managing to catch a glimpse. When instead of letting it go she pressed even closer, Kakashi started circling his chakra to keep himself calm. The way she was pressed against him made it almost impossible for him not to feel every single part of her against his arm and chest. As in, her chest , feeling soft and pliant and through her somewhat thin layers he could tell that her nipples had stiffened from the cold.

 

The sudden image of her naked and moaning on top of him crossed his mind. Kakashi had kept his eyes closed during that time but his mind was a twisted thing and had carefully stored away the feel of her, her smell, the feel of her sliding against his skin to be recycled later in dreams and times where he had felt desperate enough to try and get himself off. Kakashi circled the chakra faster to keep himself cool and collected and slowly lowered Icha Icha so Sakura could stop trying to climb him to see it. 

 

“Oh, you’re actually reading Icha Icha ,” she said, sounding surprised. She breathed a laugh that Kakashi felt in his bones and he turned just slightly so he could see the amused expression she was aiming up at him. “And you’re circling your chakra. Sneaky.”

 

Kakashi turned back to his book and tried to remind himself that he was a goddamn veteran shinobi, a master at disguise and subterfuge and he would not blush from her teasing. 

 

“Ninja,” he said drily. Sakura snorted and squeezed a bit closer to avoid coming into contact with other people.

 

“You do know you really shouldn’t be reading porn during a mission, right?” Sakura said, sounding like she was about to break out the Shinobi Guide Book.

 

“Really?” he said nonchalantly and Sakura just answered with a tiny slap with the back of her hand to his chest that stung. “This isn’t porn, Sakura-chan .”

 

Kakashi felt it was time for a little payback for all that she was having him go through. He spoke in a mix of his commanding officer voice and the teasing chan he would use whenever making fun of her. He was rewarded by the slightest of blushes on her cheeks but Sakura just scoffed and powered through it.

 

“It’s porn, Kakashi,” she said, shooting him a deadpan look that inexplicably made him feel hotter still. 

 

He closed the book and showed her the front page where a few reviews were written.

 

“It says right here it’s a romance novel,” he argued and didn’t really fight when she tried to snatch it out of his hands.

 

Sakura opened the book to a random page in the middle and he saw her focusing on the number of the pages until she reached one towards the beginning. She flipped through the book like she knew exactly what page she was looking for and that alone piqued his interest. Until he actually saw the page she had stopped at.

 

“Junko’s heavy breasts heaved as she tested the restraints tying her to the bedpost. She was a truly amazing kunoichi and could most certainly break free of any bonds, but this one aspect of her made it all the more delicious that she would let herself be bound and welcome his co—”

 

Kakashi spluttered before she could finish, remembering vividly what scene she had been describing. He took the book from her, enhancing his speed with chakra so that she wouldn’t be able to snatch it back and put it away in his back pouch so that neither of them could reach it. 

 

Sakura’s laughter sounded louder than the sounds of the festival that were getting louder as the night went on and people got looser either from the booze or the atmosphere. Kakashi knew from the burning on his face and ears that his blush was peeking over his mask but listening to the sweet sound of her laugh sounding so carefree took the sting out of the embarrassment he felt. 

 

Sakura: 1, Kakashi: 0, but that was okay.

 

They walked for an hour more, staying alert of their surroundings and their clients but letting themselves relax. They ate when Yuuka and Nohime did and it was barely midnight when the women decided to make their way back to the house. 

 

Kakashi was feeling surprised and strangely hopeful that the two had decided to come back home to catch up on some sleep during the night or maybe even enjoy their alone time when they could actually be alone and not separated from their guards by rice paper. It wasn’t like he hadn’t suffered through sleep deprivation before during a mission. In fact, he was quite used to it, either because he had to run for days to reach somewhere safe enough, he had to stay up to watch over some mark, or even the few times he had actually been captured and had suffered through torture. 

 

This mission kept him alert because he didn’t know how not to be alert while outside the village—sometimes even inside the village despite his best efforts—but at the same time it completely lacked any type of release to this huge amount of energy they were piling up. 

 

During those missions, action was never too far ahead and the adrenaline kept him awake more than anything else. Now, though, Kakashi was truly exhausted. Entering the house that night made his shoulders slouch further down than it usually did, his eye droop lower, and his hand press on Sakura’s shoulder uninhibitedly as they were led towards the sitting room and he tried to keep himself from yawning.

 

Yuuka and Nohime had forced them to join them for a nightcap and there was no way Sakura and Kakashi could refuse given all the fuss they’d raised about keeping the women within eyesight for the whole mission.

 

Of course, nightcap turned out to be a complete and utter lie and they had finished one bottle of whisky easily. Sakura seemed to have anticipated it in some way and Kakashi noticed that she was drinking faster than everyone else, filling her cup more than theirs. The women were impressed by her tolerance but Kakahi knew she was using her chakra to process the alcohol in her system.

 

When barely an hour later Sakura had used the fact that they had already finished a bottle as an excuse to retire earlier, Kakashi felt a sudden wave of gratitude for her. She had truly taken one for the team there.

 

Yuuka and Nohime had retired to their room in a fit of giggles and Kakashi was left to follow Sakura through the dark hallway towards the two rooms they had been given by the woman who lived there with her two sons and cared for the Haruno stall in the market. 

 

Kakashi had drunk at least two cups of whisky that night and while he wasn’t exactly a lightweight, it was still making itself known in the way his stomach felt warm and he had the slightest of tingles on the tip of his nose. It was nothing that he couldn’t burn away with chakra in case of an attack but Kakashi knew none would come. 

 

When Sakura opened the door to her room, Kakashi didn’t even stop to think about it before stepping up behind her. His room was merely a door down from hers but he had no intention of falling asleep alone without her cold toes pressing against his shin. Sakura, probably sensing him behind her or not even having wondered if he wouldn’t follow her to her room, walked through the door and left it open for him.

 

Kakashi didn’t waste another second. Without even turning on the light, the two of them divested themselves of their outer layers and fell on the soft bed. It was smaller than the ones they had grown used to during the mission but it didn’t matter because as soon as they were both under the covers, they slid towards each other until they met in the middle.

 

Kakashi slid a hand beneath Sakura’s neck and slung his other arm over her shoulders, hugging her to his chest but also staying on his side. Sakura’s legs tangled with his, her cold toes indeed warming themselves against his shins and her warm breath on his neck. 

 

Kakashi’s last thought before sleep took over him was that he wished he hadn’t been wearing his mask, both because he wanted to be able to feel her lips against his skin and also because he wanted to bury his nose in her hair and drown in her scent.

 

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Another day, another mind numbing ride. Kakashi was so relieved when they finally arrived at Hinote no Shuto that if he hadn’t had so much practice hiding his emotions, he would have thrown his hands in the air and thanked fuck the mission was over. As it was, he merely turned another page and left Sakura to handle the final details of getting the client’s signatures on their mission scroll.

 

Of course, Kakashi was never one to boast having good luck in his life and despite the fact that it was barely sundown, Yuuka insisted on them staying for the night.

 

Kakashi tried not to show his discontent and he could see Sakura wouldn’t be able to get them out of this one no matter how good with words and manipulating a conversation she was. Nohime left to say hello to her husband while Yuuka ordered servants left and right and Kakashi leaned against the nearest wall and read.

 

No, he wasn’t brooding , no matter what Sakura had teased him with when she briefly stopped beside him before following Yuuka inside. But he couldn’t deny that he would have done pretty much anything to leave with Sakura right then. Going the speed they made in ANBU, they would have already been two villages over and made camp with the supplies they’d had sealed in emergency scrolls. They’d be in Konoha before noon and that’s counting if they stopped a few hours for the night.

 

As it was, Kakashi was stuck following their clients’ needs and it was consolidated when it was announced that the daimyo himself had called them for dinner. 

 

Kakashi wasn’t stupid . He knew that he could never refuse the invitation and that it was very much in his best interests if he kept in the daimyo’s favour. The mess with Danzo certainly wouldn’t be fought only with a public trial. The man was so dangerous because his connections ran deep not only in the shadows, and the slight advantage they held over him was that the daimyo was sentimental and had actively chosen other people to rule over him.

 

Tsunade hadn’t cultivated her connection with the daimyo as she probably should have. Hashirama himself had been friends with the current daimyo’s father and it would have been good if she hadn’t disappeared and cut all ties with Konoha but maybe Sakura’s connections, or Yuuka’s as it were, would play to their advantage. They had to make nice.

 

Kakashi had stayed outside near the stables just long enough to finish a chapter but ignoring the gawking looks of the servants around him and the annoying presence of some of the guards got tiring and he figured it would be best if he retired to their room for the night. Everyone around him looked like they were either expecting him to perform a miracle like a god or bracing for him to attack. 

 

He followed Sakura’s scent until he found her in a spacious room with Yuuka. 

 

The older woman was ordering around two teenage girls as they took Sakura’s measurements and flitted around the room. When her eyes met Kakashi’s she immediately came forward to grab his arm. Kakashi fought the urge to scowl.

 

“Come on now, boy, we don’t have much time,” she snapped. The resemblance to Sakura then was so strong he almost did a double take. Kakashi figured he could let her order him around a bit. 

 

Sakura herself was looking more annoyed by the minute but he could tell by the way she had stayed quiet so far that she had probably figured this would be in their best interest as well. Kakashi knew that she was probably one of the smartest people in the village and he had no doubts that she was already calculating a few steps ahead.

 

Kakashi kept careful track of the girls’ hands around his body, keeping himself tense and completely in check so he didn’t react too harshly to their touch. It wasn’t exactly wise to touch shinobi like they were but if he kept his attention on what they were doing, he could somewhat control the urge to snap their necks when they accidentally pricked him with pins.

 

It was only when he was no longer beneath their hands that he allowed himself to relax and come back to what was happening beyond the two girls. Sakura and Yuuka seemed to have been talking as the older woman helped her put on a different set of clothes. 

 

Kakashi almost did another double take when he noticed what she was wearing. Sakura was dressed in her usual red haori but beneath it, the quality of the clothes couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than something the elite would wear. She was wearing a short kimono and surprisingly enough hakama pants. Everything was black with mesh showing from underneath and a deep rich scarlet obi enveloping her waist. Despite the fact that her getup could be mistaken for what someone from royalty would wear, Kakashi could see that the material was close to the one ANBU used, durable and stretchy and that the mesh was infused with the same kevlar like material from his own undershirt. 

 

With her weapons visible like they were, Sakura couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a kunoichi, but she still looked like the heir of the Haruno clan more than ever before. Standing with red painted lips and her lilac seal on her forehead, Kakashi felt the true weight of who Sakura had become.

 

She was an important member of a prestigious civilian clan, the heir to the Senju clan and one of the best kunoichi Konoha had to offer. The Godaime Hokage’s apprentice, someone who was worth an army in the field. A dangerous woman.

 

Kakashi had probably been staring at her for way too long before Yuuka appeared in front of him, her red head not even reaching his chest. She had her hands on her hips as she stared up at him.

 

“Take everything off, boy, even the mask,” she ordered.

 

“No,” Kakashi said immediately, his eye closing in a fake smile, his tone carefree. 

 

Sakura sighed and moved closer, grabbing a bundle of clothes from one of the teenage girls and handing it to him.

 

“Keep the mask, but please put this on,” she said, standing closer to him than he wanted and not close enough at the same time. 

 

Sakura was significantly taller than Yuuka, coming up to his shoulder and she looked like she fit beneath his chin perfectly. Kakashi watched as the last rays of the setting sun played with the colour of her jade eyes and found himself lost in it for the slightest of moments before forcing himself to smile again.

 

“Hai, taichou~” he said cheerily, putting some distance between them and retreating behind the screen. Sakura’s face had been set and it confirmed what Kakashi already suspected. She had a plan and it probably involved them playing nice. He would wear the clothes they gave him and rub elbows with the daimyo. For Konoha and also for Sakura.

 

He stripped and put on the crisp black kimono and dark grey hakama. There were the same mesh underpieces as Sakura had on and he appreciated that they didn’t try to make him anything other than the elite shinobi he was. When he unfolded the haori, his whole body froze.

 

The symbol for the Hatake clan was stark white against the deep green of the haori and Kakashi thought he’d forgotten how to breathe. 

 

When his father killed himself, he had been stripped of his honour and the right to be buried in the village cemetery along with the other shinobi, but the Hatake clan was still technically alive. Kakashi used to have all of his clothes as a child bearing the Hatake symbol, but after his father's death he kept to the shinobi uniform or something resembling it. And now Sakura’s plan involved him being Hatake Sakumo’s son once again.

 

Kakashi put on the haori mechanically, adjusting all of his weapons carefully as his body kept moving simply because he was following Sakura’s orders. 

 

If he was being honest with himself, he had never quite forgiven his father. In the years after Obito died, he had learned to be proud of the actions his father took to protect his teammates and understand where he had been coming from. Today, Kakashi was sure he would have made the same choice if it came between finishing a mission or saving his friends. 

 

What he couldn’t forgive was his father leaving him alone. 

 

Kakashi had never truly realised that the reason he was so against being related to anything Hatake was because of that but now he could see it for what it was. It still hurt him that he hadn’t been enough to keep his father going even if he objectively knew that his situation was fucked up. The hurt was mellowed when he tried to think of how much his father had suffered from losing his mother but he couldn’t completely forget about it.

 

There were few things in this world, however, that would get Kakashi to do something he didn’t want to. The first one was his duty to the village, the people living there, his teammates. The second was Sakura. He didn’t quite know which of these things came over the other but he did know that he would do anything to follow through with Sakura’s plan, especially since he knew everything she did was in order to make the village a better place. 

 

So Kakashi shrugged on the haori, dropped his hitai-ate on the pile of clothes before him and stepped from behind the screen. He focused on Sakura and on trying to teach himself how to breathe again.

 

“I had that made for you during our first day when I realised who you were,” Yuuka said, breaking him away from his careful breathing exercises. “I owe my life to your father and it’s wrong that Konoha was stupid enough not to see him for who he was.”

 

Kakashi’s breath stuck on his throat and he reluctantly let his eyes drop from Sakura’s to stare at the tiny woman in front of him. Her own jade eyes were shining fiercely and Kakashi was struck once again by how similar she was to Sakura. It was enough that Kakashi didn’t flinch when she grabbed his arms with more force than he expected from someone like her, and shook him a little.

 

“You need to know that in the civilian world, your father is still a hero. The Hatake clan are still respected, especially by the daimyo.” She tightened her hands around him and brought him slightly down to her level so she could have more ease in meeting his eyes. She hissed, “ Use it. ”

 

Kakashi had still yet to take another breath and it was starting to feel uncomfortable but her words struck him deep. Yuuka stepped away and told them they had to go and it was only when the other two girls followed behind her that Kakashi could go back to breathing. His vision was slightly blurred and his heart was beating too fast but he made his feet move all the same.

 

He stepped outside to follow Yuuka with Sakura by his side and tried to calm himself down. Sakura didn’t say anything as she pressed slightly closer, her slight fingers finding his wrist. 

 

The feeling of her chakra mixing with his was heady and the effect it had on him was instantaneous. She calmed him down and kept him calm while they made their way down the hall and when they were about to reach the dining room, he moved so he could take her hand in his. 

 

They didn’t look at the other but when Kakashi squeezed her hand she squeezed back before they let go and when they entered the dining room, Kakashi had his emotions under control once again.

 

The dinner with the daimyo was nothing like he imagined it would be. Instead of the whole court being present, it was just the five of them plus the daimyo’s advisor, who turned out to be the daimyo’s lover. The daimyo himself was a flamboyant man, who resembled both a grandfather and a theatre actor at the same time and he treated Kakashi and Sakura like they were his own children. 

 

Sakura played the room like he had never seen her do before. He had heard rumours around Konoha that Sakura was one of the few people who could keep all of the nobles in the Hokage Office in place and he knew that she was one of the best undercover operatives he had ever seen but still. Still.

 

Sakura was showing a part of herself he had never seen before. He briefly imagined that this was who she would have been if she had never become a kunoichi. A clan heir sitting next to the most powerful man in the country and in line to marry one of his sons. But then she shifted and the light caught the sheen of metal from the many weapons she had strapped to herself and Kakashi snapped back from the surprisingly depressive thought. 

 

After dinner, a servant led them to their room for the night and Kakashi was only slightly surprised to see that it only had one futon in it. 

 

Sakura mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like “Meddling old woman,” but Kakashi paid it no mind and closed himself inside the en suite bathroom, not really caring to give it to Sakura first.

 

It was, much like everything inside the palace, jarringly traditional compared to the modern hotels they had been staying in. Kakashi couldn’t say he was too sad about it since he had grown up in a pretty traditional house and found comfort in cleaning himself with bucketfuls of warm water and then getting into an ofuro, especially since this room was more luxurious than anything they had experienced so far. 

 

Kakashi stripped off his clothes slowly, taking the time to fold them carefully before placing them on the counter. He wasn’t sure he would have another opportunity to wear them again but he knew that it had been an actually pretty thoughtful gift and he appreciated the mesh under pieces at least. 

 

The water ran hot as he poured some of it over his head, using the wooden bucket next to the tap. Kakashi took his time lathering himself up as the room filled with steam and the warmth of it relaxed his muscles. 

 

While he wasn’t safe inside Konoha, he knew he was probably the safest he’d be while not within the four walls of his bedroom back home. Kaede was still keeping watch outside despite the fact that their mission was over and Kakashi couldn’t help but relax from that fact alone. 

 

With every swipe of the washcloth and bucketful of hot water poured over his head, Kakashi’s muscles relaxed further and he finally allowed himself to feel how tired this mission had made him. The emotional rollercoaster that had been their night was enough to make him wish for nothing else but to fall into bed. That and the fact that he had stolen the first shower from Sakura, made him skip the ofuro. 

 

Kakashi brushed his teeth, wrapped a towel around his waist and left the bathroom with another smaller one drying his hair.

 

“All yours,” he said, only realising the double meaning to his words when he saw how Sakura’s gaze didn’t leave his chest and the way her breath caught. 

 

She had divested herself of her outer layers and her weapons, and was only wearing her pants and wrappings. It took longer than Kakashi wanted to admit for him to be able to turn his back on her to go get his bag. 

 

She had her own in her hands as she moved past him to enter the bathroom.

 

“Took you long enough, asshole,” she muttered before the door closed behind her. 

 

Kakashi huffed a laugh as he dropped his towel and put his clothes on, just his ANBU pants and undershirt. 

 

The futon wasn’t as comfortable as the beds they had slept in so far during this mission but it was comforting somehow that it wasn’t. The too soft mattresses weren’t something he was used to and the fact that the futon only slightly softened the firmness of the tatami floor made him relax even further. 

 

Kakashi grabbed Icha Icha before climbing under the covers. Usually he wouldn’t bother with them before going to sleep but his shirt didn’t have any sleeves and this was too far north and too into autumn to be completely comfortable, even for him. So Kakashi brought the white comforter up to his chin and placed one hand between his head and the pillow as the other held Violence open.

 

With the gentle sounds of water moving from the bathroom and the crickets outside, Kakashi could focus again on the words he’d been reading and it turned out to be a mistake. Despite the much needed outlet, he was going to sleep next to Sakura after reading about Junko and her sexual exploits. That coupled with the dim lighting and the sounds of Sakura in the bath just on the other side of a fusuma door made Kakashi have to resort to circling his chakra to keep himself calm. 

 

He released an annoyed sigh and moved a few pages further to a scene where Junko had to fight her way out of a ninja compound with only one kunai while protecting two civilians. It helped some, not having to read a sex scene, but it didn’t take long for Kakashi to replace her with Sakura in his mind and that kind of defeated the purpose. There were few things hotter than seeing Sakura in fight mode.

 

Kakashi closed Icha Icha with another annoyed sigh. He put it next to his pack beside the futon and relaxed back into the bed, the tension almost immediately leaving his body despite how annoyed he was that he couldn’t fucking keep it together. It had been a tiring week and he didn’t want to think about what that said about his age that he couldn’t keep up for a single week of doing nothing.

 

He was finding it harder and harder to keep his eye open and his mind alert but Sakura didn’t take long to leave the bathroom. She was already wearing the inner layers of the clothes she’d be wearing the next morning, leggings and her tight lycra long sleeved shirt and she looked cosy with her pink hair fluffy from being run over with a towel. 

 

Sakura looked at him when she turned the bathroom light off and stared. 

 

Kakashi could see she was tired, her shoulders were slightly slumped like she had been holding herself too straight for a while and now the ofuro had taken away all of her muscle strength. Her jade eyes were piercing his but her lids were falling lower than usual, like she was almost asleep already. The steam coming out of the bathroom from behind her warmed his face as she stepped closer.

 

With it, another smell reached Kakashi.

 

It was her, of course, her scent overwhelming every other as usual. It was her but it was spicier, sweeter, warmer. It took his sleep-addled mind too long to realise that he was smelling her arousal and by then Sakura had already turned off all the lights and the covers were being pulled back for her.

 

It should probably surprise him or make him uncomfortable but neither happened. Kakashi had already been circling his chakra and when he felt Sakura brush his shoulders with hers beneath the covers, he didn’t think before reaching for her.

 

She was warm and pliant in his arms and undeniably wet but Kakashi had no intentions of pursuing anything that night, if at all. For now, he was content in holding her in his arms, letting her scent envelop him as his mind finally shut down after a long week of alertness. 

 

Her toes were slightly warmer than usual from her bath but they were still comparatively cold as she pressed them to his shins when their legs entwined. Kakashi fell asleep that night a few seconds after Sakura’s breath slowed, his nose buried in her hair, feeling her heartbeat through his chest and surrounded by everything that was her.

 

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Notes:

Wooooo I have A LOT to say!!! First, this is probably smth I already mentioned before (and if I haven't it's an overlook on my part and I apologise) but I am not japanese nor do I come from a japanese family. I try to do my research and while some of the things I put in this story comes from experiences I had while traveling there or from friends that are japanese, most of it comes from google. Please don't take everything I say here as the absolute truth, actually don't do that with any piece of media, even mainstream ones. I feel like I have to take the time to say this (again? lol I've had many AN's so far I don't actually remember everything I say) esp bc of the situation we're seeing in the US rn. I've always encouraged discussions and the such but I'm here asking specifically for my japanese, issei or nisei readers to reach out if you feel like I've written something that's just plain wrong and/or disrespectful.

That being said!! My creative process is a fucking MESS and I love explaining my chaotic thought process so here we go. Nohime is actually a historical figure in Japan! You can find her Wikipedia page here. She served as inspiration for my character but they're not the same so... creative license at work lol. Since I didn't know why wiki puts her name as nohime and not no-hime (as in lady no), nohime is now her name lol and since I also didn't know why she was also called kicho, kicho is now Yuuka's nickname for her! Lol I'm a mess but yeah! I actually really like exploring this side of the Naruto world. The daimyo was inspired by the character we see in the anime which felt like a caricature of a very... flighty man, imo. In here he has some more depth and even though we didn't actually see much of him bc Kakashi as a narrator was having Feelings and Thoughts, I wanted to lay a better foundation for his character. Canonically he cared greatly for family, it seems, and the concept of Will of Fire in the sense that he cared about who was taught by whom, hence his like for Kakashi. Also, if I remember correctly, he spoke highly of the White Fang so I hc that Sakumo (and the Hatakes in general I guess) were still held in a high regard by the civilians in a way. I could be wrong about it being canon but I don't care, it's canon in my fic now. xD

This chapter we can see how things are progressing between them and I hope it was satisfying to see! I wanted to show that despite Kakashi's personality being overall dominating, and the fact that he likes to take charge and be in control, he would still bend to Sakura's wishes. I was chatting w the peeps in the fandom about Kakashi being a Dom but liking to sub for people he really really cared about and trusted and I wanted to show a little bit of that and how it translates outside of the bedroom. Also, yeah they're getting closer xD

As always thanks A for beta'ing this piece and Fox for helping me out SO MUCH!! Also, the idea for Kakashi to keep from having a boner with his great chakra control while reading porn is entirely Fox's and I've been waiting for the opportunity to use it FOR SO LONG ever since we chatted about it like months ago. Thankie, bby <3

On a more depressing note I feel like I should warn you guys that I might not be able to keep my weekly updates for long. While I took that 1 1/2 months long break to write ahead, I thought this semester would be easy or at least okay but I was so so wrong lmao. I currently have written up to chapter 46 (I actually wrote more but I changed my mind and will only be using some scenes in later chapters so it's basically useless) and while technically that gives me almost a month of not having to write anything and still keep up w my schedule, I'm not mentally in a place where I can keep my productivity level up even to properly edit the chapter I post. Life SUCKS. I hope you don't feel like I'm not excited about this fic, or that I will abandon it or anything like that, it's just that I feel like a need a bit of time to be able to go back to the place I was before... does that make sense? I'll keep trying my very very best to post every week but if I for some reason don't.... just know that I'll probably do it the following Fire Friday and don't be afraid!! I was very sad when I realised I didn't know if I would still be able to give you guys this sense of constancy, especially since posting every week is something that I really enjoy doing but I feel like I should warn you guys instead of just disappearing one day bc it became too much. I'll try to keep you guys updated over on Tumblr (I'm justjstuff there as well)!!

Love you all <3

Chapter 43: Back at the Rusty Kunai

Notes:

Hello, lovelies!!! So sorry I couldn't update this Fire Friday ;-; I've had just a couple of days to properly edit this bc of life and then I was just so fucking exhausted I could barely sit in front of my laptop .-.

Thanks A for beta'ing and Fox and Al for putting up with my random freakouts and reading this before I posted <3 ily

Sakura woke up warm. 

 

After being slightly cold all week and having to circle her chakra for quite some time to keep warm, it was a nice thing to wake up to. Maybe it was the fact that she had finally allowed herself to relax the night before or maybe it was the sleep deprivation but it took her longer than usual to wake up.

 

Her mind didn’t immediately jump to wakefulness like it did most days. Instead, it felt like another lazy Sunday in Konoha where she would let herself oversleep and only got out of bed when her stomach demanded it. 

 

It took Sakura a few more minutes to realise through the pleasant laziness the steel band of muscles around her waist, for her to feel the warm breath on her neck and the insistent bulge pressing against her ass. Forget warm, Sakura was hot. She knew she should probably do the responsible thing and get up but she was uncharacteristically hazy on that particular morning and it was all too easy to arch back so she could feel the erection pressing against her better.

 

The tiny moan she let out was completely involuntary and it was only when she heard the corresponding groan in her ear that she snapped back to it. 

 

This wasn’t a lazy morning with just anyone else, this was her in bed with Kakashi. Kakashi, who would probably freak out once he was awake enough and Sakura had no business going for more than he wanted to give her. 

 

Her body must have tensed and alerted him because the next thing she knew, the arm that had been around her retreated as a hand clamped down on her hip and the bulge pressing behind her disappeared. To her greatest surprise, he didn’t leave completely, only put a bit of distance between them so they weren’t grinding against each other again. 

 

Sakura waited a few seconds and tried to keep her breathing in control despite the undeniable heat between her legs. This was torture, but since Kakashi wasn’t halfway across the Land of Fire already, she figured she was in the clear.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kakashi rasped from behind her and it once again surprised her because he didn’t sound like she thought he would. 

 

Sakura expected that when something happened between them—and it really was only a matter of when and not if by now—Kakashi would run for the nearest foreign country and take the worst mission possible, one that would last at least a few months. She figured he would be his usual guilty and self-flagellating self but it wasn’t happening.

 

Kakashi sounded sorry, sure, but he didn’t sound like it was the end of the world. He didn’t sound like he was ashamed or unwilling or any of those things. Kakashi sounded sleepy and apologetic but not regretful. 

 

Sakura slowly turned so she could look at him, fighting a gasp when her legs pressed together because she went to sleep wet and woke up even more so and she really, really wanted to feel more of him pressed against her.

 

Kakashi’s eye was open but not entirely alert, his hair dropping boyishly over his forehead as he blinked slowly at her. She could see his nostrils flaring even behind his mask and she knew he was aware that she was as bothered as he was. 

 

“It’s okay,” she whispered, not wanting to break the surprisingly calm atmosphere. 

 

Kakashi’s arm was still slung over her waist, the other beneath her neck and despite the fact that they weren’t pressing against the other anymore, Sakura still felt closer to him than ever. He breathed deep a few times, his eyes scanning her face and fingers twitching against her back lazily and then he started circling his chakra. 

 

Sakura brought the hand that had fallen between them to his neck and felt the softness of his mask beneath her fingers. She started circling her own chakra to tamp down on her arousal and a tiny breath of laughter left her when she noticed just how much harder it was to do so than that day during the ryokan party. Of course Kakashi would be able to arouse her further with a few touches than a full blown out sex party could. 

 

Despite the heat between them being set to simmer and the fact that she didn’t particularly want to escalate things further, Sakura wanted to see his face. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she knew that it had been way too long since she last saw it and she had the ridiculous urge to make sure it was still the same. 

 

Kakashi didn’t stop her when her fingers curled on the edge of his mask and slowly pulled down. He didn’t even tense the slightest when she let it slip beneath his chin and Sakura was suddenly struck by how much he trusted her. It made her want to take things as slow as possible, make this as easy for him as she possibly could. She wanted to reach inside him and take away all of his hurt and uncertainty, protect him from all heartache he had felt and could possibly feel in the future.

 

Kakashi breathed a sigh when her thumb brushed over the beauty mark beneath his mouth, her fingers curling slightly on the hair behind his ear. They stayed like that for a while, Sakura drinking in his features and enjoying the feeling of his soft skin beneath her fingers while Kakashi closed his eyes and let her explore. 

 

When the clock on their bedside table snapped the smaller hand, Sakura pulled back. 

 

It wasn’t abrupt but the sudden realisation that they weren’t home yet brought them back to reality and Sakura found herself coming back to her mission mentality. They sat up at the same time, taking stock of the position of the sun and the time on the clock and realising they had a full eight hours of sleep the night before. 

 

“Think we can make it home before dinner?” she asked as they went about the room tidying things up and putting themselves together for the trip back. Sakura was inexplicably pleased to see him put the green haori inside his bag. 

 

“If we keep standard pace throughout the day, sure,” Kakashi replied and Sakura felt another wave of gratification from the fact that he didn’t sound like he was freaking out and trying to hide it. They would be okay. “Why?”

 

Sakura shot him her most shit eating grin.

 

“We’re celebrating your birthday today, Hatake.”

 

Kakashi groaned and rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if he was asking the heavens for patience but then his shoulders slumped in acceptance and he only gave a long-suffering sigh before getting a move on. 

 

They had breakfast by themselves and left soon after with only a few words to Sakura’s great aunt, both of them eager to go back home. It was truly an amazing feeling, being able to take to the trees again, not even needing chakra to keep herself warm because they were setting a breakneck speed on a straight line towards Konoha. 

 

During the run, Sakura tested to see how far Kakashi would go. 

 

She unleashed a carefully controlled amount of chakra to her legs to get her speed up, and saw as he kept pace. Her training with Lee had given her natural speed that would match a jounin’s, but this was beyond that. Her chakra enhancement work with Tsunade paid off and she could use it for many other things other than punching and kicking holes and even though she wasn’t going full out, it was impressive that Kakashi wasn’t even breaking a sweat yet.

 

They stopped briefly around noon to eat their rations and drink some water but neither sat down to keep their muscles warm for the rest of the trip.

 

“Let’s see if you can keep up, old man,” Sakura smirked at Kakashi before taking to the trees.

 

As expected, he easily kept pace with her even though it was clear that the two of them had begun to tire. 

 

“You shouldn’t underestimate the advantage that experience gives, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi managed to tease even as he pulled ahead of her.

 

With another burst of her chakra, Sakura stepped next to him and slightly bumped her shoulder with his. 

 

“First one through the gates buys the first round,” Sakura yelled over the sound of their rushing through the leaves. 

 

Kakashi pulled slightly ahead and didn’t answer but Sakura didn’t let it go. Every step he took ahead of her, Sakura took another until they had increased their speed so much Kakashi had to uncover his Sharingan and she instinctively moved the chakra around her eyes to enhance her own eyesight so she wouldn’t be impaled by a tree branch. 

 

He turned slightly to give her an incredulous look.

 

“You’re worse than Gai ,” he said, making Sakura bark out a laugh that echoed through the forest. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura brushed her freshly dried hair as she looked at her shishou laying lazily on her bed like it was hers. Tsunade had laughed so hard when she had given her report that it had taken her a few minutes to be able to talk again and since then she had been laying on Sakura’s bed while Sakura readied herself for her night out. It wasn’t always possible but sometimes Tsunade got out of the office when the sun went down and the two of them could just laze around the house together.

 

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me when I have a night off,” Tsunade said, pouting even if she wasn’t physically doing so. She had complained a good twenty minutes after getting home about ‘stupid old cogs’ and Sakura knew she had been looking forward to a night in getting stupid drunk together. 

 

Sakura fixed her hitai-ate on her neck and petted Tsunade’s hand.

 

“I’m sure Toshio will make an appearance tonight,” she said, smirking teasingly. “You could join us. Kakashi is even paying for the first round.”

 

“No, he’s not,” Tsunade scoffed and Sakura laughed slightly.

 

“Yep, he is.” Her smirk turned devilish. “He lost a bet.”

 

Tsunade raised her eyebrow slightly, her face now amused.

 

“Do I even want to know?” she said, entirely too suggestive for Sakura’s liking. Sakura rolled her eyes but was horrified to realise she had to fight down a blush.

 

“Nothing like that, Shishou.” 

 

In the end, Sakura left without Tsunade but she could see that it was very likely the woman would show up there at some point. She made her way to Genma’s and Kakashi’s apartment complex and this time she walked up the stairs instead of barging in through the window. Sakura didn’t have to wait long after knocking for Kakashi to answer.

 

“I thought you were going to pretend not to be home,” she said when he stepped outside and closed his door. Kakashi was back to wearing his uniform and keeping ninety-six percent of himself hidden and while Sakura couldn’t deny she appreciated seeing more of him, it was still a comforting sight.

 

“I thought about it,” he admitted as he brushed past her for the stairs, his fingertips lingering on her wrist as he guided her, “but I thought it would only make you angry and then I’d have to go anyway only this time I would show up thrown over your shoulder.”

 

Sakura laughed and didn’t bother denying that that’s precisely what would have happened. When they arrived there, Sakura stopped short and felt Kakashi tense beside her.

 

The Rusty Kunai was packed. 

 

The tables had been taken away and the only place to sit left were the stools at the counter and the booths lining the walls on either side of the bar. The music, which was usually barely loud enough to listen to, was blasting louder than Sakura had ever seen and it seemed like all of Konoha had made their way inside. It was probably an exaggeration but Sakura could clearly see that all of the jounin in Kakashi’s generation were there, many people she knew from ANBU and the Rookies were also present as well as some chunin that Sakura was closest to like Izumo, Kotetsu, and Iruka. 

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Kakashi muttered from behind her and she shot him an apologetic smile.

 

“I’m sorry, I really thought this would be just a few jounin and maybe Team Ro,” she said over the sound of the music and tugged him by his sleeve until he followed her towards the back. “Consider our bet null. You won’t pay for a single thing tonight and as soon as it’s been three hours you can shunshin out of here.”

 

Sakura looked at him just long enough to see the unimpressed look on his face before she turned back to push her way through the throng of shinobi. Some of them cheered when they saw Kakashi but it was clear that most of them had no idea what they were even celebrating that night. 

 

Sakura found their usual booth half-full, some of their usual drinking partners having taken to the makeshift dance floor. Asuma and Kurenai were sitting on one side, closer than Sakura had ever seen them while in public but still far away enough to be able to deny anything. On the other side were Genma and Shizune and Sakura almost turned around to leave when she saw that they seemed to be arguing but Genma had already spotted her and immediately got up to envelop her in a hug.

 

“I hate when you go on missions without me, Petal,” he said into her hair, his senbon relegated to his fingers until he stepped back from the hug. 

 

“I’m alright, Jiji,” she smiled at him and stepped to the side to say hello to the others while Kakashi was caught into a headlock by Genma. “Hey.”

 

“Hey, Sakura,” Asuma said and offered her his pack of cigarettes in a blink of an eye. “Smoke?” 

 

Sakura didn’t particularly feel like smoking but there was an undertone of desperation in his voice that made her accept it. The last time they had spoken he had said that he was going to quit, had he gone the whole week without one? By the tick of his fingers he probably had. Sakura wondered yet again what had made him quit in the first place. The look Kurenai sent his way was proud and deeply affectionate and it made Sakura smile. 

 

Genma pushed her into the bench next to Shizune and then Kakashi after her and sat on Asuma’s side, a huge grin on his face and his senbon bobbing constantly. The grin was that millimeter too large for Sakura to consider normal and his shoulders slightly tense enough that it concerned her.

 

“Here you go, drink up,” he said, pushing a row of shots in their direction. “I don’t think Hatake will stick around for long if he’s sober. You’re late by the way, is he rubbing off on you?”

 

Sakura took her first shot and merely raised an eyebrow when Kakashi took all three of his in quick succession. 

 

“We left Hinote no Shuto this morning, it’s a miracle we even made it back before midnight.” Sakura shrugged and turned towards Shizune, noticing how her senpai seemed tense. “How are things at the hospital, Director?”

 

Shizune’s smile turned less strained as she jumped into complaining about know-it-all staff and bitter men who didn’t like that she had taken over. Sakura listened to her and engaged her in some talk about their work at the lab but most of her attention was on the general atmosphere of the table.

 

Genma was loudly engaging everyone but Shizune in conversation, Asuma seemed tenser than ever although Sakura did see his hand disappearing beneath the table, Kurenai looked nervous as hell and Kakashi, well, he seemed to be trying to drink himself into a coma. 

 

“O-kaay,” Sakura said, finally having enough of it. She took the shot Kakashi was going to take into her hands and handed him her cigarette. “You take this now and pace yourself, okay? It’s going to be impossible to clean up vomit from that bedspread of yours.”

 

Kakashi grumbled and accepted the cigarette, turning towards her so he could take off his mask and take a drag before exhaling through his nose. Sakura cleared her throat, focusing herself on not blushing when she saw him sucking on the stick and the instant bolt of heat it shot through her when she remembered just how that particular image had been used by her before. 

 

Despite the fact that he seemed significantly more willing to stick around, Kakashi was clearly less relaxed than the last time they had been at the bar. When it had been only them, Genma, and Asuma, he had gladly relaxed against the booth, touched her and laughed easily with his eyes closed but now with the presence of a crowd and people he wasn’t completely comfortable with, Kakashi seemed tenser. 

 

Sakura mourned the fact that this wouldn’t be an enjoyable night for him but rejoiced that so many had managed to gather in one place like this. She looked forward to talking to everyone. 

 

Kakashi finished the cigarette but only took a beer before settling back against the booth, not going for anything heavier after her warning. It was then that Sakura noticed how many empty bottles were around the table and the fact that most of them seemed to have gone to Asuma.

 

Conversation flowed easily around her and she tried to pinpoint what exactly was tickling the back of her brain. She catalogued everything going on, Asuma’s drinking and not smoking, Kurenai’s look when Asuma offered her a cigarette, the amount and placement of the alcohol on the table. Inner supplied her with some relevant memories of how Asuma had looked before she left and then suddenly something clicked in Sakura’s mind.

 

Asuma had drinken every single one of Kurenai’s drinks so far. He had stopped smoking. Kurenai was proud of it as if it had been something she asked of him. Genma’s too wide grin. 

 

Sakura gasped, her eyes growing wide as she stared at Kurenai.

 

“Don’t say it.” Genma vaulted over the table to slap a heavy hand on her mouth even though she hadn’t been planning on bursting it out. He looked drunk already. “Shhh, just the four of us know for now.” 

 

There was a sudden silence around their booth even though the sounds inside the bar were still loud and cheerful. Kakashi looked balefully at each of them before something like surprise and panic was communicated by the lift of an eyebrow and the widening of his eye.

 

“Ah.” He nodded and then hummed and Sakura fought the urge to elbow him into putting some more emotion behind this. “Congratulations?”

 

Sakura snorted while Genma burst out laughing, Asuma chuckling slightly under his breath even as Sakura noticed the happy gleam in his eyes. Sakura smiled brightly at him, her face just as happy as she looked at Kurenai. With a bit of a grapple, she hustled the whisky Kakashi had grabbed out of his hands and moved forward to pour a glass for Asuma.

 

“Drink up, buddy. I’m so happy for you,” she said. 

 

Asuma saluted her with the cup but Kurenai seemed more hesitant.

 

“Uh, Sakura-chan, I…” Kurenai trailed off.

 

Sakura felt the tiniest bit of irritation at being called Sakura- chan , it wasn’t like they were close enough for it and without that bit of familiarity, it was a bit demeaning, honestly. Kurenai was someone she admired, though, and the woman just looked so anxious and worried, that pesky bit of irritation quickly faded away and Sakura found herself smiling gently at her.

 

“It’s okay, Kurenai-san, we won’t exactly tell anyone.” Sakura winked at the woman and saluted her with her drink. “You let me know if you need anything, yeah? And the rest of us are going to be drinking for you for the time being.”

 

That seemed to assure the woman and Sakura enjoyed herself for the next while before deciding it was time to make her rounds to her other friends when Kakashi got up for the bathroom. 

 

She danced with Ino and Tenten, commiserating on the fact that the blonde had been stuck inside her father’s office for all of last week. Ino was mostly for show though, because Sakura knew that she was actually pretty invested in her apprenticeship and that she enjoyed the work. Tenten was in a happy mood, something about Gai seemingly having cut back on the duration of their training sessions and had quickly dragged her teammates to join them.

 

Things between Neji and Sakura had been distant but thankfully not strained and the fact that they both had a bit of alcohol in their systems had helped enough that there was no lingering awkwardness between them. Sakura had even seen him smile at something Tenten had said.

 

She danced a bit more with Ino and then left with Neji to grab another set of drinks for them. They had been talking amiably for a bit while sipping on their drinks when Sakura felt Kakashi’s heat behind her. 

 

He was leaning both his forearms on the bar as he asked for a refill but the line from his arm and down his torso was pressed firmly against her back and Sakura couldn’t fight the flush of her cheeks before Neji caught it. He raised an eyebrow at her, not exactly in reprimand but something close to it and Sakura tensed.

 

“It’s considered impolite to bail on your friends, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi said, his voice low and rumbly and the only reason she heard it was because he was just so close. 

 

Her breath caught on her throat and she was scared some of the heat inside her belly was making itself known on her face because it was sure burning hotter. Neji was looking at her slightly exasperated if a bit amused as he moved to grab their friends’ drinks. Before he could retreat and leave Sakura alone to deal with Kakashi, Genma crashed into them.

 

“Oi, Hatake!” he slurred, grabbing both Kakashi and Sakura by their necks and wiggling them around like one six-legged clumsy creature. “It’s super cute that you’re following Blossom around like a puppy. Asuma and I have a bet going on to how long it will— oomph!”

 

Genma was interrupted by both Kakashi and Sakura’s elbows on his gut. Sakura was scared he was actually going to throw up from it but it only took a few seconds before he recovered with a barked out laugh. 

 

“I’ll get these back to them and make sure Lee is not drinking anything,” Neji intervened while Kakashi and Genma argued back and forth. Sakura shot him an apologetic look that he waved away with a small smirk and then she turned to see Genma holding Kakashi’s cheeks with both of his hands.

 

Sakura watched amusedly as Genma tried to plant a kiss on Kakashi, yelling about how it was his birthday gift to him and that he needed to do this. Sakura grabbed them both by the back of their flak jackets to pry them apart when Genma finally managed to do it and Kakashi looked like he was split between sliding to the floor in embarrassment and pummeling Genma to the ground.

 

She jostled them about as the both of them tried to keep their drinks from spilling and she couldn’t help the loud laugh that escaped her. She fucking loved these two idiots.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Kakashi tried to feel annoyed but the good buzz he had going on and the general atmosphere of the bar made it almost impossible. Usually whenever there was a celebration like this, Kakashi found himself wanting to be completely alone, the feeling that he shouldn’t be there enjoying himself when Obito and Rin couldn’t, undeniable.

 

The feeling was still there, a bit, but somehow it felt more manageable. He liked that Sakura had gone through the trouble of arranging this and he liked that his fellow shinobi could have a night off to just drink and celebrate and be happy. 

 

He had performed one too many assassinations in the middle of crowds like this one to be completely relaxed but even his paranoia couldn’t keep him from enjoying his night. 

 

There was a time, though, that he realised that he may have possibly been going back to sober and the noise and smells became too much. Kakashi quickly retreated to the back of the bar to find somewhere unoccupied. He stopped by their booth to see that Gai and Tenzou were there, talking quietly to each other, and immediately turned the other way. He cherished their friendship dearly but he really needed less attention at that moment than what the two men usually gave him. 

 

Kakashi ended up leaning against the bar on top of one of the last stools on the other side of the bar. He wasn’t completely alone and the fact that he had his back to the entrance really didn’t help but it was bearable since the stools were mostly unoccupied at this time of the night where it seemed like almost everyone had hit the dancefloor. 

 

He felt the presence beside him before the man sat down on the stool next to his. 

 

“Happy birthday, kid,” Usui said, clicking his whisky with Kakashi’s. 

 

“My birthday was a while ago,” Kakashi replied. “You even bought me Icha Icha Violence: Deluxe .”

 

Usui bumped his shoulder with his and shot him a look that said “Don’t be a little shit, boy,” and Kakashi rolled his eye but chuckled at the exasperation in his Commander’s face. 

 

Before Usui could say anything else, Kakashi felt Sakura’s chakra flare from the other side of the room. He tried not to react but it was almost impossible not to, especially since he had spent most of his night keeping track of her from a distance. Kakashi sighed and turned on his stool so he could lean back against the bar and pretended he didn’t see the way Usui’s eyebrows rose.

 

Sakura was in one of the booths, sitting across from Tsunade as the two of them engaged in an arm-wrestle. He could see Yugao and Shizune were there and Ino and Tenten were cheering in the distance. Sakura and Tsunade were talking shit at each other, loudly and drunkenly and Kakashi found it incredibly endearing that Sakura’s nose was scrunching up from the smell as Kiba spilled a beer near them. He knew she had been constantly enhancing her senses to match her pack’s and it was highly likely that she hadn’t noticed she hadn’t stopped doing it yet. 

 

“What are you smiling about, boy?” Usui asked and it was like a bucket of ice water down his back. 

 

Kakashi felt panic deep inside his chest but merely frowned at the distance and ignored Usui’s question. He didn’t want this to be a thing. 

 

“Don’t you have some work to do?” Kakashi asked instead, making Usui scoff.

 

“Stop being a little shit, boy,” he said, grabbing Kakashi by the hair and mussing it so much Kakashi’s head went from side to side. “I see what’s going on, I’m not stupid.”

 

“I have no idea what you mean,” Kakashi replied calmly even as a storm raged in his stomach. Usui sighed deeply but took his hand off Kakashi to loosely hold his drink instead. The two of them drank in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company in a way they didn’t often have the time to do. Despite his badgering, Kakashi was glad that Usui was in his life.

 

“Wolfie-chan’s good for you,” Usui said after finishing his drink. He didn’t let Kakashi deny anything before powering through, standing up but not moving away so he could still speak in a low voice. “You two make a good team, kid. I’m glad to see you happy like this.”

 

Usui turned then and smiled at Kakashi, his eyes crinkling familiarly. He smiled and dropped a heavy hand on Kakashi’s shoulders like he had done when Kakashi’s world had fallen apart once again after the Kyuubi attack, his usual supportive attitude warming Kakashi’s chest.

 

“Don’t let your big head tell you that you shouldn’t be.” He squeezed again before letting go. Kakashi was already frowning into his cup when Usui moved away.  

 

Despite there being some modicum of truth to what Usui had said—Kakashi wasn’t in the business of lying to himself and he could admit he didn’t feel comfortable feeling happy, knowing that it would end in tragedy soon enough—he still couldn’t deny that he had been feeling positively light for the past week.  

 

It was surely weird to think about it, that the only person who had ever managed to make him feel this way was someone he used to teach .

 

Kakashi sighed, not wanting to continue on this train of thought, especially because his past position as her jounin teacher wasn’t exactly a reason that he considered when not taking the next step. Sakura had never truly been his student and he had never had any conflicting thoughts when she was under his care anyway. The problem was that he didn’t care. 

 

He wanted her in a way that consumed him, took his breath away and made him dizzy. And it wasn’t like he had read in Icha Icha and countless other romance novels. It wasn’t fantastical, something that one would see in the movies or anything like that. Kakashi wanted Sakura in a way he hadn’t realised until it slipped right past all of his defences. She had slipped right past them, just as easily as she did the booby traps on his window. 

 

The problem was that Kakashi felt comfortable. He felt content and happy and he didn’t really want to ever go back to feeling miserable the way he had made himself be as penance for his shortcomings in the past. 

 

Kakashi finished his drink and pushed all of the troublesome thoughts away. He was extremely relieved when Genma showed up to drag him away once more, this time flanked by Gai. The three of them sat in their booth where Tenzou finally managed to give him his gift—the only one he had received that night because his kouhai had actually been the only one to take his birthday seriously—and Kakashi was smothered by his friends on all sides. 

 

He didn’t mind it, not really. If only Sakura wasn’t still making her rounds.

 

It was a few moments later that Sakura’s laughter sounded across the bar as she twirled around some dancing couples to escape Tsunade’s wrath. It seemed like Sakura had won that arm-wrestle after all. It didn’t take long for her eyes to meet his and Kakashi found himself smiling again without even meaning to. 

 

The smile she gave him was positively radiant and Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh softly as she dropped beside him, her movement choppy from how drunk she looked. Sakura leaned heavily against him even though there was plenty of space in the booth for her and blew a piece of hair that had fallen on her eyes away. 

 

“Did you win?” he asked while discretely grabbing the drink that had been in front of Kurenai. Asuma was nearing pass-out drunk at this stage and he did not want to deal with that. Sakura laughed, leaning her head on his shoulder and making Kakashi want to touch her more.

 

“It’s impossible to win something with shishou, she’s always cheating and so am I,” Sakura said.

 

She reached across him to get another drink from the table but in the process made sure to brush against him. Kakashi didn’t know if it was on purpose or not but it made his blood run hot and it made him wish they were alone. 

 

Kakashi only noticed he’d been staring down at her when he felt eyes on him from across the booth. It was just Tenzou, thankfully, and Sakura realised it soon enough and put some distance between them. Not much, but some.

 

Kakashi sighed into his drink, trying to enjoy the rest of his party and not let anything show to his perceptive friends. They had nothing to hide, of course, but he knew it was something the others would notice if they weren’t more fastidious. He had no inclination to treat Sakura like she was just his ex-student in front of the other jounin but that didn’t mean he wanted them to know everything that was happening between them. 

 

Whatever the fuck it was that was happening between them. 

 

Kakashi was taking a slow sip from his whisky when Sakura pressed her leg against his. They weren’t touching anywhere else and it wasn’t a particularly arousing position but it did make him feel warmer and it had nothing to do with the aged whisky sliding down his throat. 

 

Then her hand dropped to his thigh and he choked on his drink.

 

Kakashi cleared his throat, trying to play it off to his friends who didn’t seem all that interested in him almost dying to begin with and then he glanced at Sakura from the corner of his eye. She was just sitting there, talking to Yugao across from her and sipping her drink—which he saw she had also taken from Kurenai—while her hand rested over his thigh.

 

Kakashi took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down but it happened to be a mistake because then he could actually smell her despite the other smells on the crowded bar and he suddenly felt lightheaded. Sakura didn’t seem to have noticed her effect on him and that made Kakashi try harder to relax. 

 

This was nice, really, despite the nerves unsettling his stomach. Sakura’s hand was surprisingly hot over the material of his pants, in contrast with her icicle-toes, and it really wasn’t all that terrible when she absentmindedly scratched patterns into the fabric with her blood red nails. 

 

Yeah, it was really nice. 

 

“You know,” Sakura said, breaking Kakashi out of his thoughts and it was only then that he realised that Asuma and Kurenai were getting up to leave. “Kakashi?”

 

“Huh?” he said unintelligently, focusing back on her and not on the amusing sight of Raidou trying to prop Asuma upright. Sakura snickered and bumped his shoulder with hers.

 

“It’s already been three hours,” she said when he looked down at her. “You can leave if you want.”

 

Kakashi hummed, his eye roving over her features as he tried to muster all the soberness he had inside him to make sure no one was listening in to them.

 

“Will you come with me?” He didn’t know what made him ask it. 

 

All Kakashi knew was that he slept better when she was with him and he had grown used to being surrounded by her scent when going to sleep or waking up and he saw absolutely no reason to stop that. So far it had been easy, way too fucking easy, to be like that with her and he wanted her with him that night.

 

Sakura’s eyes widened in surprise as Kakashi continued staring seriously at her. Sakura let her expression go blank again but before she closed herself into her carefully constructed mask, Kakashi could see other emotions other than surprise. Sakura was pleased by his forwardness, it seemed, impressed and somewhat amused. Kakashi didn’t care, he was drunk, tired and sleepy and he wanted her in his arms when he finally rested.

 

“Somehow I didn’t ever imagine you saying that,” Sakura said, hiding a smirk behind her glass. 

 

Kakashi shot her a flat look and briefly looked away to see the others were still engaged dealing with a drunk Asuma and now a crying Gai before turning back to her.

 

“It seems a bit redundant trying to pretend we won’t eventually end up there, doesn’t it?” he asked loftily and Sakura only hummed. 

 

He was momentarily afraid he had read everything wrong but then she was squeezing his thigh as she chugged the rest of her drink.

 

“C’mon,” she said, getting up and moving away so he could get up as well. Kakashi finished his own drink quickly before following after her and then stopped to duck beneath one of Asuma’s arms as she did the other. “Let’s get you home, big guy.”

 

Kurenai sighed in relief as the two of them finally managed to get Asuma up. Kakashi was ready to move this along, maybe shunshin with his friend to the Sarutobi clan compound and dump him there, but Sakura had other plans.

 

“We’ve got Asuma, Raido-san,” she said sweetly. “Maybe get someone to help Gai and Genma later in the night?”

 

Raidou pouted, nodding but looking like he would rather do anything else before Tenzou stepped in.

 

“I’ve got Gai-san, we live relatively near,” Tenzou offered, helpful as always before looking significantly towards where Shizune was deeply engaged in a conversation with Genma. “Looks like Genma will be okay.” 

 

It was surprising that Tenzou was sober enough. Even though it was relatively early on in the night, his kouhai was an infamous lightweight. It was rare to see him being one of the less intoxicated on the table, enough so that he could notice the tension between Genma and Shizune. 

 

“Let’s get going, then,” Kakashi said, trying to get a move on. Asuma smelled like a distillery and it was simply torture to stand with him a moment longer. 

 

When they made their way outside, Kakashi could breathe better. He had the sudden urge to pull his mask beneath his chin but despite the fact that he wasn’t as strict with his mask as he made himself out to be, only a few of his friends had actively seen him without it and Kurenai was not one of them. 

 

“To your place, then?” Sakura asked politely and smirked when Kurenai blushed prettily and nodded. Kakashi chuckled and they took to the rooftops, neither him nor Sakura drunk enough to not be able to deal with that bit of chakra manipulation. 

 

“Como on now, Kurenai-chan, don’t be shy,” he teased and felt his chest warm at the way Sakura’s laughter rang out in the night. When he paid more attention to her, he could see that she had placed one chakra filled hand over Asuma’s stomach and was thoroughly impressed to see she could use iryo-ninjutsu while inebriated. 

 

Gathering chakra to their feet to stick to the rooftops was one thing, healing was another. Then again, Sakura had probably already metabolised most of the alcohol in her system.

 

“Who are you calling chan , Hatake?” Kurenai shot back, undeniably sullen and Kakashi would bet that she was rolling her eyes from where she was speeding ahead of them. “I’m older than you.”

 

“You are?” Sakura asked, entirely too surprised for his liking.

 

“She’s barely a year older,” Kakashi replied, now rolling his own eye. “And despite that should really be showing more respect towards the most senior officer.”  

 

“Oh, don’t pout, Kakashi,” Sakura scoffed, earning herself a glare that Kakashi didn’t even pretend to put any heat behind. Kurenai let out a surprised giggle, probably at the fact that Kakashi didn’t even snap anything back towards Sakura. 

 

They dumped Asuma at Kurenai’s and the man thankfully woke up long enough to put himself to bed, sparing Kakashi the need to actually have to do it. He and Sakura were out of the window before they could hear the sounds of their friend throwing up. Kakashi didn’t want to be in Kurenai’s shoes.

 

Kurenai’s apartment was closer to Kakashi’s than Asuma’s place so it didn’t take them long at all to get home. Kakashi dropped to the entrance and climbed the stairs with Sakura by his side, her arm brushing his from time to time and making his skin tingle even beneath their layers of clothes. 

 

“I don’t think I ever came here at night through the door,” Sakura observed as they pushed into the apartment.

 

“That’s because you’re a heathen,” Kakashi shot back, dropping his keys on the table and clumsily stepping out of his sandals. He heard Sakura doing the same as he stepped further in, moving to open the window. 

 

The room was stuffy because he had closed everything up before leaving and Kakashi suddenly felt too hot. It seemed like the combination of days on end without much sleep, sudden chakra burst from the trip back and the alcohol from his birthday party was finally catching up to him and Kakashi was ready to get himself into some comfortable clothes and beneath his covers already. 

 

With no short amount of irritation, he grabbed a kunai to slash at the wrappings around his ankles and simply dropped everything on his way to his room. 

 

Sakura snorted from the door to the kitchen.

 

“Effective.”

 

Kakashi simply hummed cheerfully in response, already halfway to his room. He quickly stripped off everything but his boxers and brought the old uniform he used as pyjamas to the bathroom with him so he could take a piss and brush his teeth.

 

Once he was done, he felt marginally more human but still tired enough to not be thinking exactly straight. It was still too hot for him to even consider putting the sweater he had picked up so he didn’t even think about stepping out without it until he saw Sakura waiting for him outside. 

 

He froze in his tracks, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t checking her out now that she was out of her haori. The black, sleek lines of her long sleeved lycra shirt and hakama pants were strangely appealing even though she wasn’t effectively showing anything other than her hands and feet. Kakashi couldn’t stop a smirk from forming when he noticed that she had been staring just as much, her eyes roving over his chest, lazy from the alcohol.

 

Her eyes snapped up to his face, meeting both of his and it was only then that Kakashi realised he had opened his Sharingan. He slowly closed it and watched in fascination as Sakura’s cheeks darkened considerably. He had the sudden urge to see just how far that blush went but then Sakura was stepping up to him and handing him something.

 

“Drink it.” 

 

It was a glass of water and a small pill. She held it over until he took it and chugged it all down before nodding in satisfaction and Kakashi couldn’t help but smile again. This time her eyes caught on his lips but she quickly snapped them up to meet his again.

 

“There should be a spare toothbrush in the cabinet,” Kakashi offered, his voice rough from just how tired he was. Sakura seemed to notice then that he was really, really ready for bed and she nodded slightly, stepping out of his way so he could go to his bed. She smiled gently at him, so sweetly and unguarded it made Kakashi’s chest tighten. 

 

“I won’t be long,” Sakura said then closed herself inside his bathroom. 

 

He hadn’t bothered turning on the light when he came into his room so when she closed the bathroom door, it was dark. His curtains weren’t completely closed, though, so he could see after a few seconds of letting his eye adjust to the darkness. 

 

Despite the fact that he was still a bit too hot, he didn’t bother opening the window in his room, knowing that it would soon be too cold if he did. Kakashi left the bedroom door open so that the open window in the living room could keep the place fresh and didn’t waste any more time before slipping beneath his covers. He breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes, almost drifting off to sleep before Sakura came out of the bathroom.

 

When she did, he didn’t even have to scoot before she was sliding between him and the wall. Kakashi heard her check for the kunai she had stashed between the mattress and the wall and reached blindly to pull her to him, his nose immediately burying against the back of her neck.

 

“You’re wearing my sweater,” he accused sleepily, bringing her even closer when she hummed in response.

 

“I wasn’t about to go to sleep smelling like a bar,” she muttered into the pillow they were sharing. “We should have showered.”

 

Kakashi grumbled sleepily and nuzzled his nose on her neck again, delighting in the shiver that went through her.

 

“‘showered when we got home, Sakura-chan,” he teased her and wished he wasn’t as sleepy and drunk as he was so he could do something about the sudden smell of her arousal. “Didn’t you?”

 

Sakura hummed again and pressed her ass closer to him, thankfully only managing to press into his stomach since he was lower on the bed than her. Kakashi had the sudden urge to bite her in retaliation but was much too relaxed to even bother with it.

 

“You know I did,” Sakura said, sounding like she would pout if she also wasn’t exhausted. Kakashi huffed a sound that could have been a laugh if he hadn’t been so lazy about it.

 

“I still can’t believe you would steal my clothes like that.”

 

“ I can’t believe you wear your uniform even to sleep.” She turned her head to smile softly at the half-hearted glare he sent her.

 

“They’re old and comfortable,” he said simply.

 

“You know what else is comfortable?” she teased with a breathy laugh. “ Pyjamas .”

 

“Sleep now, you little jerk.”

 

“So mean,” she mumbled but Kakashi was already asleep.

Notes:

This chapter was originally longer and... steamier lol but I decided to change some things about it, I hope it was still satisfying even though it's kinda shorter than what I usually put out heheh I'm having a lot of fun with bringing the KakaSaku to a boiling point lmao Next chapter will have to be heavily edited before I post because it was following the same line that I decided to change in this one so pls bear with me even if I don't manage to update this Friday!!

There's been some people asking me about Naruto and I just wanted to address this to everyone. I don't give out spoilers, ever. This isn't Naruto's story, it's Sakura's so even though he will come back soon, you guys shouldn't focus on that. This fic was a sort of fix-it to canon and that means that we will veer pretty far away from canon in some points while I tell Sakura's story. A lot of things out of canon already happened and we'll continue to see the ripple effect they have. So yeah, Naruto is still training with Jiraiya and Sasuke is still training with Orochimaru, I just stretched the timeline so it's been almost 5yrs since they both left Konoha. I'm still debating on using the "not canon compliant" tag tho bc a lot of things do follow canon so... I dunno.

Oooh okay I'll have to address the whole Genma/Shizune situation pretty soon but since that particular plot point is not yet unraveled, I won't do it right at this moment. For now, check out my answer to some of the comments I got in previous chapters.

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and that y'all had a great weekend!!! I love you <3

Chapter 44: Inevitable

Notes:

i'm back :)

pls mind the tags <3

Sakura figured it had been a bit naive to think just because the mission had been boringly easy that she wouldn’t go through her usual set of nightmares on her first night back. Granted, they were somehow milder in comparison to what it had been a few years ago but no less jarring. 

 

She dreamt of blood and loss and she woke up knowing with utmost certainty that she was trapped and in need of escape. Her fight or flight response kicked in, her mind somehow rationalising that there would surely be no other reason for her to be caged in between a wall and somebody other than she was being attacked. 

 

Sakura scrambled against her captive’s hold, her fingers trying to find purchase beneath her as she choked off a scream. This wasn’t the finesse she showed on the battlefield, it wasn’t calculated moves down to the millimetre, careful chakra control and strategies. 

 

This was pure panic, tightening her throat that felt raw from screaming, her eyesight blurry and uncontrolled breaths as she tried to survive. 

 

Sakura’s fingers closed around the familiar hold of a kunai, comforting even through the haze of panic and desperation clouding her senses. She vaguely recognised the sound of her name being called but her body was on autopilot as she quickly turned to slash with her miraculously found kunai at the throat of the person trying to hold her down. 

 

It was the smell of blood that brought her back to her senses, feeling so real beneath her unconsciously enhanced olfactory senses that it jarred her back to reality, the utter familiarity of it bringing her to a halt better than the warm hands around her wrists. 

 

Sakura realised with dawning horror that she had slashed at Kakashi’s throat. They were both half sitting up half lying down turned to the other as he held both her wrists in his hands. Sakura immediately dropped the kunai, iryo-ninjutsu already gathered at the palm of her hands as she frantically tried to get to his injury. It took her a while to realise he had been speaking.

 

“—kay, Sakura, I’m okay. It’s just a scratch, come on, it’s okay, calm down.”

 

Sakura took a shuddering breath, trying to calm herself not because he had asked her to but because in her panic her chakra was having a hard time responding to her and her hands were going from violently green to normal chakra-blue at odd intervals. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” Sakura stuttered, her chakra finally answering her properly so she could heal the cut on his throat. “Kakashi, I’m so, I’m so sorry, p-please. Kakashi.”

 

They were almost completely sitting up then, Sakura practically on his lap as one hand shook over the torn skin on his throat and the other held his tightly. Now that she had calmed down a bit, she could see that it really wasn’t as bad as she had imagined. The cut was deep enough so that blood had begun sliding down his throat towards his sternum but it was still shallow and not threatening in the least. 

 

Sakura still felt tears gathering in her eyes at the prospect of what could have happened. She tried to close her eyes to stop them from falling but it was no use, they burned hot paths on her cheeks as she kept her hand over the healed skin of his throat. 

 

Kakashi squeezed her hand tightly and suddenly his other one was sliding through her hair on the back of her head. His thumb worked circles on top of her hand for a few seconds as Sakura tried to keep her sobs from escalating and then Kakashi tilted her head back so he could look at her face. 

 

His Sharingan was open again and he was looking at her with such care and compassion Sakura couldn't hold back another sob. She fell forward, pressing her forehead to his shoulder as she counted her breaths, trying to slow down her frantically beating heart. 

 

They stayed like that for a while, Sakura slumped over him and Kakashi holding on tight to her as if she was going to disappear at any moment before Sakura finally found the strength to pull back and check his wound again. Her tears had dried but more were threatening to spill as she brushed her thumb over his throat. 

 

“Sakura,” Kakashi muttered and she felt the sound vibrating beneath her fingertips. 

 

She frowned slightly, her fingers sliding against the still fresh blood. In the moonlit planes of Kakashi’s room, she could see the blood running down his throat contrasting against his skin even with the darkness. There wasn’t a lot of it, nothing that Sakura would have been concerned about in the field, only this time she had been the one to inflict that injury.  

 

She slowly moved her fingers from his throat to the side of his neck, immediately finding the pulse there and focusing on it. Kakashi’s heart beat strongly and sure, alive, and Sakura could finally breathe again. The wave of relief that hit her then was so strong she was afraid she would pass out from its intensity but feeling Kakashi beneath her fingertips, his hand warm on her own and on the back of her head, kept her from spiralling. 

 

Slowly but not hesitantly, Sakura followed the path of his throat with her eyes, up towards the mark on his chin towards his mouth, past his straight nose until she met his own mismatched eyes. She couldn’t see clearly with how dark it was but she felt his heartbeat speed up beneath her fingertips when their eyes met. 

 

It felt inevitable, really, that they would eventually end up like this. Sakura felt like she was standing on a precipice, on the verge of taking a step that would change everything and that she wouldn’t be able to take back. She also knew from the way his muscles were tightly coiled even as his fingers tightened where they held her that she would have to be the one to take that step. 

 

In the end it was the easiest thing she’d ever done, closing the distance between their lips in the darkness of his room in the safety of their village. 

 

She pressed against him slowly, giving him time to back away but knowing that he wouldn’t. Kakashi had wanted and yearned for this as much as she had, she knew, and she didn’t think anything short of a natural catastrophe would be able to stop them from getting what they wanted. 

 

That first kiss was chaste and it would have been almost sweet if her hand hadn’t been smeared with his blood and their hearts weren’t beating frantically with anxiety and leftover adrenaline. Sakura stayed as close to him as she could for those first few seconds, breathing him in and trying to make the moment last forever. 

 

Then Kakashi’s fingers tightened where he was holding her and all thoughts of staying still left her. Sakura leaned forward, biting his lower lip before soothing it with her tongue, the small grunt he let out making her press closer, deeper into his hold. The wave of arousal that hit her then was surprising in its intensity, the adrenaline in her system vamping it up and the sheer need to feel him alive against her was almost suffocating. 

 

Sakura breathed a tiny moan as she scrambled to get on top of him. She was being completely driven by her need to have him closer but even though Sakura wasn’t smooth as she usually was, Kakashi accepted her on his lap readily, the hand that had been holding hers letting go to grab at her exposed thigh before sliding up beneath her borrowed sweater to hold her hip while the other tightened its hold on her hair. He was bringing her closer still, like he was echoing Sakura’s need to merge into one and he couldn’t wait to have her pressing against him. 

 

Kakashi took control of the kiss, sliding his tongue against hers and drawing another breathy sound out of her, making Sakura roll her hips unconsciously on his lap. The angle wasn’t right for her to grind against the bulge in his pants so she pressed closer, urged by the hand that had slid back down to grab her ass. 

 

Between the worn material of his sleep pants and the soft cotton of her underwear, there was barely anything at all between them and the feeling of his hardening cock pressing between her thighs made Sakura break the kiss to breathe a ragged sigh. Kakashi tightened his hold on her hair and pulled it back slightly so he could expose her throat, making a shiver run down her spine. Her sigh turned into a choked moan when Kakashi closed sharp canines on her neck, his tongue hot and wet against her skin. 

 

Sakura pressed down harder, completely unable to control her movements, unusually overwhelmed by how hot it was. Kakashi worked on her neck, biting and sucking, while his hands slid beneath her sweater, bringing it up as he slid them higher. His thumbs had just brushed the underside of her breasts when Sakura found the will to push away from him so she could take the whole thing off. She threw it somewhere behind her and moved both hands to Kakashi’s still short hair to pull him back to her. 

 

This kiss was even more intense than the last one and it progressed quickly when Kakashi grabbed her ass with both hands to pull her even closer. Sakura broke the kiss to pant against his jaw as she grinded down on him, his erection hardening further and making a breathy moan slip from her lips as she scratched at his scalp.

 

Kakashi moved again to her neck and this time Sakura let her hands wander, sliding from his hair to his neck and shoulder, feeling him warm and solid and slightly scratching him when he found a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear.

 

Sakura had wanted to keep things slow when she had first considered going further with this, but there she was, still slightly drunk and surrounded by everything Kakashi and she found her self-control lacking. All she wanted was to be closer, crawl deep inside his ribcage and surround herself with him. Sakura continued with her exploration of his chest with hurried hands, unable to decide if she wanted to grab at his neck and put him on his back or pull him further up to kiss her. 

 

She ended up sliding them down his torso until she reached the waistband of his pants. Sakura had to squeeze her hands between them because he didn’t let her pull back to get some space but she didn’t care. Sakura opened the hidden button of the old model of the shinobi uniform with practised fingers and then moved to work on the zipper. 

 

Kakashi groaned when she finally managed to slip one hand inside, even though she only managed to get his pants open and hadn’t even started working on his underwear. 

 

“Fuck,” Kakashi said into the already abused skin of her neck, his breath washing over goosebumps even as she had never felt as overheated. 

 

Finally deciding to help her, Kakashi lifted his hips slightly so she could slide his pants a bit down and then work on his underwear. He brought both of his hands to her jaw suddenly, moving to kiss her deeply and desperately. Sakura managed to get enough space now that his arms weren’t caging her and tried to keep up with the kiss as her hands made quick work of getting his cock free from his boxers. 

 

She wrapped her hand around him and smirked when Kakashi released a heavy breath through his nose. She fought the urge to groan at how hot and heavy he felt in her hands. She inhaled deeply, his scent completely enveloping her and kissed him harder. Kakashi’s sharp canines dug into her bottom lip and Sakura pumped her hand slowly around him, bringing her thumb to smear the bead of precum on his slit. 

 

The smell of blood and sex was already heavy with the closed windows and it only made everything headier but it also brought her back a bit to the present.

 

“I got blood all over you,” she panted after she broke the kiss, her forehead pressing against his even as her hand didn’t stop working him. 

 

“I don’t care,” Kakashi rasped, releasing her jaw to slide his hands down her back and bring her closer again. This time when he reached her ass, he squeezed roughly and used his hand to lift her to her knees so her chest was level with his face. 

 

Sakura was forced to release him and before she even knew what was happening, Kakashi had closed his mouth around her nipple. Her jaw hung loose as she looked at him, her hands coming instinctively up to grab a hold of his hair. Kakashi looked up at her as his tongue pressed flatly against the tip and then he closed his lips more firmly around her and sucked , and Sakura thought she might have died.

 

The sight of him, looking up at her with one eye dark and the other shining red as his cheeks hollowed was sinful and she figured she might die a happy kunoichi if this was the last thing she ever saw. 

 

Sakura moaned, impatient to get him closer still even if he was working wonders on one breast and then the other. 

 

“Kakashi, please,” she begged, not caring that it sounded needy. Contrary to what her sober and centered mind had told her, she didn’t want to take this slowly. Not anymore. She wanted to be consumed by him and she wanted it now. 

 

Kakashi seemed to read her mind, and quickly grabbed her closer so he could flip them over and cover her with his body. In their haste they seemed to have forgotten about the kunai she had dropped between them, though, and Sakura only remembered it when she fell on top of it. 

 

She must have cut herself on it but the sharp sting of a cut was barely noticeable when Kakashi went back to kissing her and it only seemed to heighten her pleasure. Still, Sakura hissed into the kiss and arched her back so she could grab the fucking thing with one hand and hurl it blindly across the room. The sound of it embedding on the wall echoed around the room but neither of them stopped.

 

“You okay?” Kakashi pulled back slightly to ask her but Sakura didn’t let him get far and hummed her confirmation into the next kiss. It felt like once she properly got a taste of him, completely loose and driven by desire and not a mission objective, she couldn’t get enough. 

 

Sakura moaned when he sucked on her tongue and impatiently brought her legs around him to pull him completely flush against her. His cock nestled between her legs and she rolled her hips down to feel it better, wishing there was nothing more between them. 

 

“Fuck,” Kakashi hissed, breaking their kiss and pushing a bit away so he could look between them. He sat back fully and even though Sakura tightened her legs around him, not particularly wanting him to leave, he pressed against her thighs until she released him enough so he could get some distance between them. 

 

Sakura grunted in response but her frown disappeared as he moved his hands to her underwear and almost ripped it off her in his haste to get it out. Sakura huffed in amusement at the completely focused look on his face, wondering if there was a blush on his face because her own cheeks sure felt hot. 

 

But then all rational thought left Sakura as Kakashi pushed his boxers and pants a bit further down and lined himself with her entrance. He teased her slowly, sliding between her folds and feeling how wet she truly was before angling back down and then grinding up into her again. He felt so hot and hard against her, she thought she would lose her mind if he wasn’t inside her within the next second. 

 

Sakura whined in a mix of anticipation and pleasure when the head of his cock slid against her clit and quickly brought her hand down to wrap around him. Her other hand grabbed at the back of his neck to bring him closer, fingers sliding through the short hair there as she locked eyes with him.

 

For a second it seemed that the whole world had narrowed down to the two of them as they stared at each other, completely in sync despite the hurried and unfinessed way they had pawed at each other. Kakashi fell to his elbows, his forehead pressing against hers as she guided him to her entrance.

 

Sakura released a shaky breath between them when he pressed forward, sliding a bit into her. It felt good, really good, and Sakura only tilted her hips to slide more of him into her, a broken sigh escaping her. Kakashi pressed a grunt against her lips as Sakura brought her legs back around him and then rolled his hips forward so he could finally bottom out. 

 

He stopped there, the two of them panting into each other’s mouths and Sakura thought for a terrifying moment that he would actually stop. She slid her hands around his back, sliding easily with the mix of sweat and blood and whined high in her throat, not at all above begging. 

 

It hurt. It wasn’t something nice and choreographed like her subconscious came up with whenever she tried to relieve some of the tension alone at night. Despite the fact that she had been drenched, the lack of foreplay and the impressive girth of his cock made it sting but Sakura didn’t really care. It was somehow even better, how raw she felt, exposed and true in the best of ways.

 

“Please, don’t stop,” she whispered against his lips, rolling her hips up into him and tightening her inner muscles around him until he grunted. 

 

Kakashi granted her wishes, pulling back slowly and then burying himself inside her until his pelvic bone was hitting hers, setting a slow but hard pace that had her dizzy and breathless, wanting more. 

 

The heat between them was incredible, setting her alight and making her feel more alive than ever before. Sakura pressed forward to kiss him, needing to taste him as he kept the deliciously controlled pace he had found. His tongue was hot and his teeth sharp on her lips, making Sakura moan by how complete and full she felt. She had gradually gotten used to his size and all traces of the pain were gone, not that it had deterred her in any way before.

 

She brought her legs up, inviting him deeper, wanting to feel him all around her. Kakashi grunted with the change in angle and Sakura couldn’t help the moan that escaped her when he reached the sweet spot inside of her from this position. She couldn’t help much with the way she had her legs so high up around him but that didn’t seem to stop Kakashi. 

 

He sped up his pace further, taking the breath out of her lungs with it. Every time he brushed against that sensitive spot, Sakura released a breathy sound, clutching at his biceps and back, everywhere she could reach really, to get him closer, get him to go deeper, faster, harder. 

 

Sakura felt the familiar crest of pleasure that would take her over the edge but while it built and filled her, it didn’t go any further. She had been so overwhelmed with anxiety, fear and adrenaline just a short while ago and she didn’t really think she could finish. She didn’t even actively want to, if she was being honest, this wasn’t about getting off. This was about him and them and feeling him alive and safe inside her arms, his heart beating against hers.

 

With a needy sound, she brought him closer still and this time he fell forward, his sweat-slicked chest sliding against hers as his thrusts slowed but became more powerful. Sakura could feel the sweat on his forehead mingling with hers, she was breathing the same air as him and if she focused, she could feel his heart beating, hear it with her enhanced senses. She had never felt this close to anyone else and she distantly worried she’d never be the same again.

 

Kakashi’s small grunts and the way his breath went ragged were undeniably arousing. Sakura wished the moment would never end so she could appreciate this part of him further, see him in a way that was closely resembling how he was on the battlefield but still differed from anything she’d ever seen on his face. That thought alone was enough to make her moan, her eyes closing for the moment, her eyebrows creasing in the middle. 

 

She raked her hands down his back and then felt him shudder, breathing a small sound on the back of his throat that sounded close to a growl. Kakashi brought one hand to her face then, the other sliding beneath the pillow and bringing him further down on top of her. She revelled in the feeling of having his weight pressing her further into the mattress, his thumb caressing her jaw impossibly softly.

 

“Look at me,” Kakashi rasped, his voice impossibly low and rumbly, shooting a surge of pleasure straight to her core like a lightning bolt. Sakura moaned again, the sound bursting forth without her consent. “ Sakura . Look at me.”

 

Sakura opened her eyes at the commanding sound of his voice, immediately getting sucked in by the intensity behind his mismatched eyes. He was staring deep into her soul, it seemed, the tomoe in his Sharingan spinning dizzyingly and his charcoal grey eye so dark it was almost black. Sakura shuddered beneath him, her inner muscles contracting around him and drawing a wrecked sound from the back of his throat. 

 

Kakashi’s thrusts were beginning to get more frantic, the rhythm of it lost as his brows drew further together. It was with a weird sort of clarity that Sakura realised he was about to come, and it only took her a half second to decide she would be trying to see this side of him as much as she possibly could in the future. 

 

He groaned a broken sound, his hips snapping frantically against hers once, twice before he stilled. Sakura could feel him swelling and pulsing inside her as she watched the way an almost snarl pulled his upper lip back so the sharp points of his canines glinted in the moonlight. A breathy, content sigh left her without her consent and she pulled him further into her, not letting him pull out before she kissed him again.

 

This kiss was languid and slow, like Kakashi was still coming back to himself and needed the extra time to move. He exhaled sharply through his nose, the tension in his back leaving completely as he dropped further on top of her. If Sakura had been a civilian she would probably be suffocating at the moment but she simply sighed again, enjoying his weight on top of her. 

 

“Sakura…” Kakashi whispered against her lips, trying to pull back now that he had caught his breath. Sakura simply shushed him and tightened her hold so he wouldn’t be able to go away. He chuckled slightly, more carefree than she had ever heard him before. “Let me make you come.”

 

It was a question but it was posed as a command and the steel behind his voice made her breath stutter in her chest and her inner muscles clench unexpectedly around his softening cock. He slipped out of her then, forcing her to release her hold slightly on him so he could pull back enough to see her.

 

“I’m okay,” she tried to assure him but was quickly silenced by the intense look on his face. Her cheeks felt hot again when she could properly look at him, looking thoroughly fucked and satisfied but with a stubborn tilt of his jaw that said she would not be going to sleep without coming at least once.

 

Sakura sighed, knowing she probably wouldn’t be able to do it even if he tried his best and smiled gently at him. She carted her hands through his messy hair, pulling slightly on the strands so he would come back down to kiss her again. It felt dangerously addictive, his kisses, and Sakura felt reluctant in admitting even to herself that she couldn’t possibly see herself ever going without them again.

 

“Kakashi,” she whispered against his soft lips, satisfied when he pressed down on her again, his lower torso sliding wetly between her thighs. “I don’t think I can tonight.”

 

He hummed into the kiss, sounding disbelieving and dismissive as he kissed her slowly, softly but deeply. He kissed her for a long while, enough that Sakura could feel how swollen and bruised her lips were, and then he pulled back to look at her. His face was still intense but it held a softness to it that made Sakura’s heart clench painfully in her chest. Fuck. 

 

Kakashi angled his head so he could kiss the tip of her nose, her lips then moving to slightly peck both of her cheeks, the rhombus on her forehead, her temples and chin. Sakura breathed a soft incredulous laugh and felt his smile when he kissed his way down her neck. 

 

Her heart rate was mostly back to normal then and she could enjoy how hot and heavy he felt above her, the hard planes of his lower torso sliding deliciously against her wet and sensitive centre. Sakura sighed, feeling slightly exasperated that he felt he had to prove something, it seemed, but knowing it wasn’t exactly that even as the thought came to mind. 

 

“I want to make you feel good,” he murmured against the valley of her breasts, licking at the sweat beaded there. “You’re so fucking perfect, fuck .”

 

Sakura felt goosebumps erupt on her skin from his words spoken hotly against her breast. He took one nipple back between his lips, sucked lightly on it before taking the hardened tip of it between his teeth and grazing it softly. Sakura exhaled sharply, her hands tightening on his hair.

 

Kakashi slid one hand between them then, his fingers finding her dripping wet with his own release and her arousal, open for him. There was an obscene squelching sound when he slid a finger inside her, making her cheeks burn even as she moaned weakly. His finger slid easily inside of her, and he inserted another before long. 

 

He kept kissing, biting and sucking her breasts while his fingers set a smooth and slow pace, curled slightly to hit the best spot inside of her. Sakura panted softly, unable to keep a groan from bursting forth when the palm of his hand slid deliberately across her clit.

 

“Kakashi,” she sighed, arching against him, becoming surprisingly aroused to the point she had started to doubt her certainty about not being able to come at all. She had certainly underestimated Kakashi’s dedication. 

 

He released her right breast with an obscene pop that had Sakura gasping and increased the speed of his fingers while coming up to press his lips to hers again. The kiss was filthy, hot and with just enough desperation behind it to make Sakura moan. He sucked on her bottom lip and took his fingers briefly from inside her to roll tight little circles around her clit, taking her breath away.

 

Sakura whined when he sped up slightly before going back to press inside her, his palm taking over once again in stimulating her clit. Sakura broke the kiss then, unable to focus on it now that heat was building so deliciously once again. This time she felt the wave coming and cresting and she was undeniably aware that she was going to come and soon .

 

“That’s it, let go,” Kakashi pressed hot kisses on her neck, sucked harshly on the skin beneath her ear, his voice hot and low, commanding even while he kept his tone relatively soft. “Let me see you come, Sakura. C’mon, you’re doing so well, you’re so fucking good.”

 

Sakura gasped, grinding down on his hand harshly, completely unprepared to what his words were stirring inside her. She whined again, begged him to speed up with her hips, trying to ride his hand faster. Kakashi in return pulled back slightly so he could keep the constant and intense rhythm he had set. Sakura grunted in protest, feeling frantic in a whole different way now and needing him to fuck her hard and fast and deep with his fingers. Kakashi slowed down.

 

“It’s okay, Sakura,” he whispered, pressing his lips back to hers. “I’ve got you, don’t worry. Calm down, let it come.”

 

Sakura threw her head back against his pillow, her mouth hanging open in a silent cry as he sped up slightly. It was enough to make her pant and moan raggedly into the still air of his room, almost completely overcome with the molten heat building inside of her. 

 

“Fuck,” she groaned breathlessly, feeling the press of Kakashi’s teeth on her throat as he smiled against her. The constant rhythm of his fingers sped up again but he kept it even and still maddeningly too slow. Sakura’s hands scratched blindly at him, her gasps constant and uncontrolled. 

 

It only took Kakashi closing his teeth around her throat for the tightly coiled band that was her arousal to snap and for Sakura to come, hard and satisfyingly. Sakura wasn’t sure if she cried out or not, completely overcome with the intensity of her pleasure.

 

When she came to, Kakashi was cleaning his fingers on the edge of the blanket, kissing her softly on her neck. It was only when he pressed kisses further up to her face and then to the corner of her eyes that she realised a few tears had escaped. 

 

“Fuck,” she said incredulously and Kakashi hummed in agreement before kissing her. It was a soft kiss, almost chaste, but his tongue slid against hers as a reminder of just how hot it could get. 

 

After a few beats, he pulled back so he could flop down on the bed beside her, both of their chests heaving slightly even as he had come down from his own high quite a while ago. Sakura stared at the ceiling unseeingly for a while, stretching slightly while Kakashi ran a hand through his hair and sighed, all tension escaping them both. 

 

He groaned slightly, making Sakura look at him, unconcerned but curious why he sounded so regretful. 

 

“Can’t believe I’m still wearing pants,” he muttered darkly, wiggling out of said offending garments and taking his boxers with it when he chucked them aside. Sakura giggled softly, completely tired and spent.

 

“ I still can’t believe you wear your uniform even to sleep,” she didn’t need to turn to know he had sent a half-hearted glare at her bringing up the topic again.

 

“They’re old and comfortable,” he said again, echoing his words from just a few hours before.

 

“ Pyjamas ,” she teased with a breathy laugh, not bothering to say the whole argument out loud again. 

 

Kakashi rolled his eyes and rolled on top of her briefly. When his impressively half-hard cock brushed against her thigh she was afraid he would want to go again and she really didn’t have it in her anymore that night. Instead, he kept going until he could slip beneath the covers between Sakura and the wall. Her breath was completely stolen out of her when he pulled her back into his arms, fitting her against his chest like it had become usual for them.

 

“Go back to sleep.”

 

Sakura hummed into his neck, pressing a slow kiss there that ended with her just resting her lips against his skin. Kakashi hummed tiredly in response and it was the last sound she heard before letting sleep take over.  

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura woke up the next day feeling completely spent and like she could easily sleep for the next few days . She stretched slightly and blinked her eyes open to the relative darkness of Kakashi’s room. The curtains weren’t all the way closed and the door was still open, letting the light from the living room in but still making the room seem the cosiest Sakura had ever seen it. 

 

There was a slight breeze that tickled her exposed arms and chest but it was easily remedied when Sakura wrapped herself further into the shuriken comforter. And then groaned miserably. She was sticky everywhere. 

 

“Stop stealing the covers,” Kakashi mumbled from behind her where she had squished him against the wall in her sleep. Sakura muttered angrily into the pillow they shared in return but only snuggled back against him when he moved behind her to properly wrap his arms around her.

 

The smell of dried blood tickled her sensitive nose and she breathed a resigned sigh.

 

“I gotta get up,” she rasped, her throat feeling dry even if she was briefly satisfied she didn’t have a hangover. Aside from the fact that she had dried cum, sweat and blood all over her, the amount of sun was worrisome. Ideally she would leave around dawn so people wouldn’t see her and while she could technically activate her seal, it didn’t exactly change the fact that she could very well bump into Tsunade back home like the last time. Sakura sighed again.

 

The rational part of her, becoming more aware of where she was and what she had done and with whom , was freaking out a bit. Kakashi seemed sleepy enough to not have realised the full weight of their actions yet but she didn’t particularly want to stick around to deal with it first hand. Especially if he was going to deal with this as horribly as she expected. 

 

Tension was bleeding back into her sore muscles slowly and Sakura mourned the relaxed state she had been in just moments before. 

 

Sex with Kakashi was… intense. 

 

She knew neither of them had been in top form the night before and making such a radical change to their relationship wasn’t exactly wise after the emotional roller coaster of the night before. It certainly hadn’t been the right time to take this next step, especially with the war against Danzo looming in the distance but she couldn't find it in herself to regret it, even if Kakashi decided to disappear on her for a while, which frankly seemed likely. 

 

Sakura slid off his bed before he could make that decision for her. 

 

At least she tried to, because before she could swing her legs out, she was being pulled to fall on her back, the breath expelling forcefully from her lungs with a small oof.

 

“Where are you going?” Kakashi asked, looming above her.

 

The sheets were bunched between them, exposing his back but forming a bit of a barrier between their naked bodies. Kakashi held himself up with both arms stretched, creating more distance between them so they could look at each other better while one of his knees braced in the space between her legs. Sakura was sprawled on her back, dazedly staring up at him.

 

He looked ridiculously good for a man that was clearly hungover. His growing hair was already standing on end on the front, no longer hanging quite over his eye like before and it was a complete mess around his head, dried with sweat and the slightest of pinks in some places from the blood that had been on her hands. She could see the mess that his chest and throat were, dried blood peeling away and smudging his skin pink. Sakura couldn’t imagine she looked any better.

 

“I was going to take a shower,” Sakura lied easily, but knew she wouldn’t be able to fool him. He knew exactly that she had been trying to make a hasty exit like she had done the last time she had woken up in his arms in the safety of Konoha. 

 

Kakashi simply hummed, one of his eyebrows raising slightly as if to say, “Oh?” Sakura huffed an annoyed breath but it was mostly because there was a traitorous blush staining her cheeks from being called out. He couldn’t blame her for trying to pull back before he did, spare herself the annoying feelings that would come with his inevitable avoidance and rejection. 

 

Kakashi sighed slightly, his Sharingan shut and the other eye squinting at her for a second before he lowered himself to her. He pressed a kiss on her flaming cheek and stayed there for a few beats. Eventually, Sakura raised her hands to hug him to her, relishing in the warmth of his back and completely unable to hold back a small, content little sound.

 

“I do hope you were planning on taking said shower here,” Kakashi said, the words pressed against her jaw where he nipped briefly. Sakura shivered slightly and it wasn’t from the cold. No one had any right sounding this positively sinful this early in the morning. 

 

“I can’t stay long, I technically should be at the office right now.” Sakura cursed herself for being such a stickler for the rules but the truth was that things were still positively intense at the office and she wanted to be at her shishou’s side. There was a meeting with the council at noon and she absolutely had to be there before it started to keep most of the work off Tsunade’s shoulders. 

 

“C’mon then,” Kakashi said, pushing himself away from her and the bed entirely. He stood over her on the side of the bed, completely naked and Sakura couldn’t help the tiny smirk that found its way to her lips when she let her eyes rove over the smooth planes of his muscles and then further down. “Weren’t you late, Sakura-hime?”

 

Sakura blushed again, finding it entirely unfair that he seemed to be hellbent on seeing her do so as much as possible and even more so that he succeeded. Instead of waiting for her reply, Kakashi raised his eyebrow at her minutely, both of his eyes opening to take her in before he turned on his feet to head over to his bathroom. 

 

She heard the pipes groaning and when the sound of the shower box clicking shut could be heard, she jumped to her feet. She had absolutely no idea why Kakashi wasn’t running away as fast as he could or why she wasn’t being ushered out as quickly as possible out of his personal space but she didn’t want to sit around and think herself into a circle. He was offering her a shower and she was sure as hell accepting it. 

 

Steam had already gathered inside the shower but Sakura closed the bathroom door behind her to trap it further. She took a moment to appreciate the sight of Kakashi’s back muscles wet and glistening with water before stepping in behind him. 

 

There were goosebumps all over her body now and even though it was warmer inside the shower, Sakura hesitated before stepping closer. Kakashi turned around before she could decide if she wanted to ask politely for him to move or just forcibly move him away from the source of warmth.

 

He used both hands to smooth his hair back and opened his eyes to meet hers. Sakura was unprepared for the bolt of arousal that shot straight to her core. Her cheeks darkened further and Kakashi smirked slightly, his eyes leaving hers to follow the blush down to the top of her chest. After a long beat of charged silence, he pulled her to him.

 

“You’re not exactly hurrying away to the office, Sakura,” he said before pressing a quick kiss to her lips that almost made Sakura lose her footing. “Should I just assume you decided to not go after all so we can enjoy this shower better?”

 

The bastard. She wanted absolutely nothing else other than to feel him inside her again, especially with how his half-hard cock was pressing against her belly. Still, Sakura had her duty and she had never been one to be distracted from it, even if she had planned to wake up early that morning to do a proper workout before going to the office. 

 

“Raincheck,” Sakura whispered into the steamy air around them. Kakashi hummed once, kissed her again and manoeuvred them so she could be beneath the spray. 

 

Sakura closed her eyes and let the hot water fall over her face and hair, sighing as some of the tension that had sneaked into her muscles dissipated. She heard Kakashi open the cap of his shampoo over the sound of rushing water and raked her hands through her hair slowly, giving up halfway when she was met with a few tangles. 

 

Even though she could feel Kakashi, his heat somehow managing to still affect her, he didn’t touch her. He stayed close to her while he lathered his hair and she got rid of some of the residual stickiness over her body but he gave her enough space that she didn’t feel smothered. Despite their arousal being evident to the other, Sakura didn’t feel the need to take what time they could get to jump each other again. There had been a sense of urgency the night before that made itself known in the way she had been aching for him since waking up but somehow she felt… quiet. 

 

She smiled slightly, her eyes still closed and head under the spray, thinking how comfortable she was inside that shower with him. If it wasn’t for the undeniable attraction between them and the fact that she was currently cleaning his cum from between her thighs, it might have felt like a regular shower shared by Team Ro after a mission. 

 

“So you’re a blanket hogger and a shower hogger.”

 

Sakura sighed at having her peace broken by his teasing and opened her eyes to glare at him but moved aside so he could wash the suds out of his hair. 

 

“You look ridiculous,” she said, even though it was a fucking lie. Kakashi looked perfect, as always, even with his hair foaming and sticking up all over. 

 

“And you’re mean first thing in the morning.” He shrugged before pointing with his chin towards the dip in the wall that held an assortment of products. “Pakkun’s shampoo is there if you want to use it.”

 

Sakura snorted at his quip. He knew full well she didn’t use the same shampoo anymore. She had changed it after the Konoha Crush, the knowledge that a dog used the same shampoo as her just too embarrassing at the time. Then when she got into ANBU she traded for the standard scentless shampoo all operatives used and later on, when she had started enhancing her olfactory senses and realised just how recognisable scent was, she changed all of the products she used for scentless ones. But, of course, Kakashi would still tease her about using the same shampoo as Pakkun after all those years. 

 

She reached for his ANBU standard shampoo and started working on her hair, mournful that he didn’t have any conditioner there. She usually went without during missions but even though she had given up anything perfumed she still liked to have some luxuries while in the comfort of her village.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Sakura was still massaging her scalp when Kakashi stepped forward again, slightly out of the water but only close enough to press a kiss to her throat. 

 

“Don’t forget to heal these before going to the Tower.” He nipped lightly at her skin and Sakura had to trap a squeal behind her lips before she could embarrass herself. She felt his sharp canines at her throat and shivered. “All yours.”

 

And then he got out of the shower. The box was still heavily steamy and Sakura couldn’t really see him properly through it but she knew he had only stopped briefly to dry himself before leaving. Sakura grumbled under her breath at him having left her more aroused than she actually wanted to be if she couldn’t do something about it. 

 

She finished her shower without rushing, circled her chakra for a while to cool herself down and then left. She tried to fight a smile when she saw the towel he had left for her but was entirely unsuccessful. Sakura dried herself quickly and wrapped her hair in the towel before looking in the mirror.

 

It was still foggy but a few swipes later and she could kind of see herself.

 

“Fuck,” she muttered, eyeing the litany of bruises on her neck, shoulders and chest. 

 

Sakura had never minded a bit of pain during sex, even welcomed it occasionally, but she had never gotten quite this marked from it before. It was weird because while it had been entirely unfiltered and raw, the night before was far from the roughest she’d had. With clinical fingers, Sakura healed only the bruises that would show above the high neck of her bodysuit. For some reason, it felt wrong to erase every single evidence he left on her. 

 

With that mental reminder, Sakura sat down on the toilet to pee and focused her chakra briefly on her reproductive system to get rid of any remaining sperms that could possibly cause trouble in the future, and then flushed it out of her with the smallest amount of chakra. She could burn them out with chakra if she wanted or even control her hormone levels to trick her body into thinking it was pregnant so she wouldn’t even ovulate, but this was the easiest method which she preferred. 

 

After washing her hands, Sakura brushed her teeth quickly with the toothbrush she had used the night before. She rinsed her mouth and stared at the plastic stick for a while, her lips pursed in consideration. It felt like one of those defining moments in life, like the night before just before she leaned forward to kiss him or earlier that morning when she didn’t immediately leave. 

 

She eyed the cup Kakashi kept on the counter with his own toothbrush and toothpaste. She could put hers there, but somehow she knew that the sight of her toothbrush next to his would bring some feelings that she wasn’t ready to deal with yet. 

 

Sakura placed it on top of the counter, neither throwing it away nor placing it in the cup, and left it for Kakashi to decide what to do with. 

 

Her hair was annoyingly wet still but she let it dry naturally, unable to hide any awkward creases in it now that she wore it loose down her back. Sakura walked through his bedroom past his living room and entered Kakashi’s kitchen to see him placing a hot plate of gohan with a side of tamagoyaki. She blinked at it for a few seconds while Kakashi ran water over the pan he had used and let it sit in the sink to be washed later. 

 

He shot her a quick smile, mask firmly in place and “pyjamas” on and then turned to leave.

 

“Enjoy breakfast, I’m going back to sleep.” 

 

Sakura huffed a laugh in amusement, not turning to watch him leave. She could hear him puttering about in the bathroom as she sat down to eat.

 

“Itadakimasu,” she muttered sleepily, not happy at all that she had to go into the office without her workout, especially since she wasn’t naturally a morning person. She dug in and had to fight a moan. His cooking was delicious. Of course it was. She scarfed down the meal like a starving woman, a frown on her face even as she moaned in delight. The bastard could at least try and be bad at something. 

 

Sakura finished her meal and cleaned the dishes before moving back to the living room to get her sandals. She cogitated putting them on already and leaving but a little tug deep in her belly made her hold the shoes in her hands and make her way to Kakashi’s bedroom. 

 

He was sprawled on his belly, hugging the pillow to his face and snoring softly. 

 

For a few seconds she just watched him, appreciating how safe he felt with her still inside the apartment as he laid in his freshly changed bed sheets. The old ones were bunched beside the bed, a haphazardly placed black set in its place on the bed. Sakura let her eyes roam over his body once more, appreciating the way his back muscles looked like in the tight spandex shirt and then formed a seal with her hand. In the next second, she was in the middle of her bedroom.

 

She quickly changed into fresh clothes, long tight pants and another version of her prefered bodysuit with her haori on top, grabbed her things and left through the tunnel that would lead her to the Hokage tower. 

 

The office was already bustling with activity when she got there. Tsunade was angry, she could see it the moment she opened the doors, but looked at her with a grateful expression when she took the civilian noble complaining about taxes off her shoulders. Sakura dealt with the old man and a couple of newbie jounin who had passed their test the month before until the office was blissfully quiet, this close to Tsunade’s meeting with the council.

 

“I’m too old for this shit,” Tsunade grumbled, massaging her temples with her fingers and looking like she would give anything to have a bottle of sake in front of her.

 

Sakura snorted and made her way to her shishou’s desk to organise some of the papers there. 

 

“You’re not too old for anything, Shishou, shut up,” Sakura said, finishing her work with the papers and moving to press a chakra filled hand to the woman’s shoulders, relaxing the tension there and then moving to lessen the headache she was sporting. Sakura knew Tsunade could do that for herself but that didn’t mean she couldn't still take care of her. 

 

“You didn’t come back home again,” Tsunade murmured, relaxing into the back of her chair when Sakura was done. “Were you at the same place you were last time that happened?”

 

Sakura smiled brightly at Tsunade and pointed to the scroll of meeting points still open before the blonde.

 

“Shouldn’t you be prepping for the meeting?” she asked instead but Tsunade only rolled her eyes and shot her a wholly unimpressed look.

 

“Don’t tell me what to do, brat.” Tsunade raised an eyebrow at her. “So you were with him.”

 

Sakura dropped her smile, immediately pouting that Tsunade hadn’t let her escape the question.

 

“You know, it is common courtesy to let things go when you notice someone is avoiding an answer,” Sakura grumbled, leaning against the edge of the desk next to Tsunade but staring out of the window instead. She focused on pinpointing where Team Ro was stationed while they kept watch. 

 

“There’s really no reason to pretend otherwise, Sakura,” Tsunade scoffed and waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Besides, I need to distract myself before this goddamn farce of a meeting otherwise I’m going out through those windows and walking until I see the first bar.”

 

Sakura huffed a small laugh but she knew Tsunade really wasn’t kidding. That day, they were going to propose putting Toshio in the council and while it was a move in their favour, it would still be a stressful discussion. Sakura really didn’t envy her shishou at that moment. 

 

“Well, I don’t think you have any more time to occupy yourself, Shishou,” Sakura said, pointing at the clock behind her. “It’s almost noon.”

 

Tsunade grumbled a bit while her eyes roved over the scroll in front of her before she closed it with a snap. She turned in her chair but Sakura stared straight ahead through the windows, knowing that Team Ro could basically hear everything if they wanted to with everything open as it was.

 

“From how you’re limping I wager it was good then.”

 

Sakura choked on her next breath and coughed furiously, her whole face burning. She turned wide eyes towards her shishou and glared at her when she saw the gleeful look on the woman’s face.

 

“I’m not limping, Shishou.” Sakura took a deep breath and forced herself to relax.

 

“You are blushing, though,” Tsunade said triumphantly, all too gleeful from getting a reaction. In the next second she turned completely serious, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “I hope he knows I will obliterate his puny body if he ever hurts you. Shouldn’t be too hard either, he has a weak constitution.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes, knowing Tsunade was both telling the truth and lying at the same time. She knew that she would try and make Kakashi’s life hell if he fucked up but Sakura also knew the man had a special place in her heart, being her dead friend’s son and all.

 

“You wouldn’t kill him, Shishou,” Sakura said, just because Tsunade hadn’t let her lie her way out of the conversation earlier and she didn’t want to let her lies hold. “What was it that you said before? You changed his diapers when he was a baby, watched him use his first kawarimi and rander your senpai to tears or something.”

 

“Ha! That’s right,” Tsunade said, leaning back on her seat and putting her feet up on her desk as she relaxed further into her chair. There was a funny look on her face, one Sakura had seen before whenever she talked about the past but didn’t linger on hurtful subjects. It was nostalgia and sadness but also a tender sort of happiness that made Sakura’s own heart constrict painfully. “I could still give him two months of D-ranks, though.”

 

Sakura laughed, happy and slightly less freaked out than she was before.

 

She was treading unknown waters at the moment. What she had with Kakashi was completely different from everything else she ever had before. While it was warm and comfortable in some ways—the two of them did know each other better than most in the village and had grown incredibly close—it still managed to instil a bit of panic deep inside her. 

 

She had been hurt before, and despite Yugao’s words still ringing inside her head, she was still conflicted about giving everything like she had before. Sakura liked whatever it was that the two of them were at the beginning of, but she didn’t want to completely dive in head first. 

 

Still, knowing that Tsunade didn’t exactly disapprove of the two of them made things incredibly easier in her head. She knew not everyone else would think the same way if they knew. If they ever lasted long enough to come out to everyone.

 

Sakura chatted lightly with Tsunade as she went around the office to set up for the council meeting. She took the table from the other room, the chairs and prepared some tea and left with a peck on Tsunade's forehead before anyone arrived. 

 

Sakura went to train then. Usually she hated training heavily during the afternoon because of the sun but they were on the cusp of winter now and it was bearable to do so. She still sweated through her clothes as she tried to expel all of her worries through physical exertion.

Notes:

I am baaaaack!!!!

Those of you who follow me on Tumblr know I was taking this slight break but now I'm back to writing! I'm not sure I can go back to posting every Friday again but I'll try to keep at least a chapter every two weeks or smth... let's see how it goes! Life is very much insane right now, I dropped out of college so now I need to divert a lot of my creative energy towards making my dreams come true so it's going to be a wild end of the year for me, I hope you guys continue to follow and engage over here and Tumblr! I love y'all thank you so much for the kind words last chapter <3

Remember last chapter when I said it was originally steamier? Well, this was supposed to happen then and this morning after thing would have been the next chapter but then I changed my mind because it didn't feel like the right time for them? But then I stepped back and took some time off and now that I went back to it.... it just feels more real like this. Life doesn't happen with everything at the right time and I actually love that, so I'm very happy that I took this time so I could see things clearer. Of course, there will always be repercussions but I'm happy that I developed their characters to reach this place and just... yeah I'm very happy with it xD Thanks, A, for helping me make sense of the mess that was inside my head and for beta'ing this for me <3

These last few chapters have been relatively calm and it will continue in this fashion for a bit before things pick up again and then... chaos. lol. I'm writing a few chapters ahead so as soon as I'm done with the one I'm writing right now and have 45 edited, I'll post it!!

Thank y'all for your patience and for sticking with me <3

Chapter 45: No More Running

Notes:

*slides in with sunglasses on and a coffee*

‘sup, nerds.

*slides the chapter over the table to you and then skitters off like a gremlin*

Sakura was having dinner that same Saturday when Genma stumbled through her back door. He waved a bottle of whisky, his other hand clutching a lit cigarette. Tsunade was still stuck at the office and probably would take longer to come back home since she liked to get ahead of her work on Saturdays to get at least a bit of a break during Sundays. Still, she would kill Sakura if there was even the slightest of smells of smoke inside their house.

 

“Put that out, you idiot,” Sakura hissed, diving for the cigarette and crunching it with her own hand before frantically looking around for something to do with it. Even if she put it in the bin, it would still smell up the place. She dug through the cabinets with one hand to get a few plastic bags before shoving the butt into several of them, tying it up and putting it inside the bin. 

 

She was still furiously scrubbing her hands—unburned because of the chakra she had gathered there—with soap when she realised that Genma hadn’t really said anything since arriving. Sakura turned her head to look at him while she dried her hands.

 

He was slumped over her kitchen table, his head between his hands and a mercifully closed bottle sitting sideways next to his elbow.

 

“Genma?” Sakura asked, foregoing any of her nicknames for him as she finally registered that something was wrong. She came to sit next to him, a hand glowing soft green reaching for the back of his neck. She eased his headache and cleared his sinus, coming to the horrifying conclusion that he had been crying. 

 

Sakura put one hand on his forearm, the other smoothing over his uncharacteristically dishevelled hair until he was ready to speak.

 

“We broke up,” he murmured so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. Sakura held her breath while he scrubbed a hand on his face before dropping both arms to cross on the table. He took a deep breath, released it a bit shakily and then turned his head slightly to shoot her a small, absolutely pitiful smile.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sakura whispered, a slight frown on her face. Shizune and Genma loved each other. She was absolutely certain of it. 

 

“It’s okay, Flower.” Genma put one hand on top of the one that she had kept on his forearm and squeezed. His hand was slightly sweaty but warm and Sakura squeezed him back with enough force to bruise. “Drink with me?”

 

So Sakura drank. She did it much less than Genma and mostly because she knew that if she didn’t share with him, he would most likely drink the whole bottle by himself. They were almost finished with it when Genma spoke again.

 

“She wanted me to work fewer hours.” Genma raked a hand through his hair, messing it up again. “Take a less risky position, maybe as an instructor. But… that’s just not me, Hime.”

 

Sakura hummed and didn’t interrupt him. While being in the Hokage’s Guard Platoon could be a bit boring in the day to day dealings, it was one of the most dangerous jobs in the village. It only took one attack and Genma was expected to lay his life for the Hokage’s. And with the war with the Akatsuki and Danzou looming in the distance, it really wasn’t a safe position to be in.

 

Even before that, Team Ro wasn’t a team that did milk runs. They were the best of the best inside ANBU and they only took extremely dangerous and delicate missions. And Genma thrived in that danger, just like all of them did. 

 

“Shizune works eighteen hours a day sometimes,” Sakura finally said. “It seems hardly fair that she would ask that of you but would still get to do her dream job.”

 

“Yeah, she…” Genma sighed, then blinked a few times. “She wanted to start delegating more work. Spend more time together.”

 

Sakura wanted to tell him that she still thought it was a bit selfish of her senpai to ask that of him. She hadn’t even felt comfortable telling people they were together, after all. Still, Sakura refrained from giving her opinion when she saw that Genma knew all of that, otherwise they wouldn’t have broken up. After taking a few more sips of the whisky, Genma continued.

 

“She wanted… Shizune wanted to get married. Have kids.” Sakura stared wide eyed at him while he scoffed. “Some bullshit about the two of us not getting any younger. The truth is… we just weren’t compatible, me and her. Can you imagine me? A father? ”

 

Sakura could. Honestly, she thought that Genma would make the best dad in the village. He was thoughtful and patient with those he loved, took great care with helping people grow but never smothered them. But Genma was first and foremost, an exemplary shinobi.

 

He would raise his kid to be like him, independent from a young age and battle-ready by the time they left the Academy. He would have to raise a kid knowing full well that they could end up becoming an orphan like he had and he would be okay with that because that’s the life of a shinobi. From the few talks Sakura had shared with her senpai about it, Shizune didn’t want that.

 

She wanted someone that would be home with her every weekend, someone that would be able to take care of the baby when she had to rush into the hospital and mostly, she wanted someone that would raise that baby with her. And quite honestly, she deserved that. Sakura was just glad that they could realise that the other wanted different things and break up instead of forcing a life neither of them wanted to live on the other.

 

“Love sucks, Jiji,” was all Sakura said, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, her other hand sandwiching his. Genma barked an unexpected laugh.

 

“Yeah.” He placed his head on top of hers and released a harsh breath. “I had to try, though.”

 

Sakura nodded, her hair catching at his tokujo flak jacket. Genma had loved Shizune since he was twelve. He would have been a fool not to do anything in his power to be with her when he realised she reciprocated his affections. Sakura just wished she could pull the hurt right out of his chest and into hers, anything to make him stop sounding so horribly sad. 

 

“You did everything you could but change the very essence of who you are, Gen-chan,” Sakura said into the soft material of his sweater. “I’m proud of you.”

 

Genma made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

 

“ Stop .” He huffed an embarrassed laugh. “I already did enough crying for a decade.”

 

Sakura giggled slightly, feeling incredibly sad but surprisingly hopeful that her best friend would be okay. What he said rang with what Yugao had told her when they’d had their drunken conversation about love. He loved Shizune and he went for it and stuck to it until the end. Only his end hadn’t been death like Yugao’s but that only went to show that not all love stories had to end with death for it to be a tragedy.

 

Tsunade came home soon after, a few scrolls balanced in her arms alongside a few bottles of sake. She stopped when she saw Genma and Sakura felt him tense up but held him still when he tried to get up. Tsunade sighed, shot him a look and put her things on top of the table. 

 

“Tsunade-sama,” Genma said respectfully. “I—I was just…”

 

Tsunade rolled her eyes.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you, kid.” She put her hands on her hips. “I know Shizune is an amazing woman and she will find someone who wants to live the same type of life beside her. Besides… you look pitiful.”

 

Sakura snorted a laugh, shooting Genma a side look and seeing his flushed face as he spluttered. Tsunade smiled slightly before shooing him with her hands. 

 

“Go home now,” she said. “I need to finish this before bed so I can have a quiet fucking day tomorrow and you need a shower and sleep. Take the next few days off.”

 

Even Sakura was surprised by how accommodating Tsunade was being. Genma spluttered some more and argued that he couldn’t possibly take a leave for this and Sakura narrowed her eyes at the woman, trying to work out the puzzle.

 

“It’s fine, brat.” Tsunade waved her hand in the air and then locked her eyes with Sakura, something wicked shining behind the gold of her irises. “Hatake will fill in for you.”

 

Ah. That made sense.

 

“Shishou,” Sakura warned but her voice was amused. Tsunade sniffed and ignored her completely. 

 

Sakura rolled her eyes, sighed a bit and got up, pulling slightly on Genma’s arm so he would do the same. Genma followed her but stumbled and would have fallen if she still didn’t have her hold on him. Sakura raised an eyebrow at him but Genma only shrugged.

 

“I might have forgotten to eat anything today,” he explained and Sakura stared exasperatedly at him. 

 

“Stay and eat the leftovers,” Tsunade said, her focus already on her sake, “ quietly. ”

 

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Genma muttered and Sakura sat back down with him, ready to finish her forgotten dinner while Genma ate some, careful not to throw up.

 

Sakura walked Genma to his apartment, his arm slung over her shoulders so she could keep him steady but she also suspected it was because he wanted to keep her close. She didn’t mind, if he let her, she would spend the rest of his life by his side, hugging the shit out of him whenever he needed some cheering up. 

 

“We could train together tomorrow morning since you won’t have any work,” Sakura offered while Genma took out the pack of cigarettes he had hidden inside one of his jacket’s many pockets. 

 

“Yeah, that sounds great.” He nodded and fumbled around to try and light one up. “But not too early, I don’t think I’ll be very useful.”

 

Sakura snorted another laugh and took the cigarette and lighter from him, finishing the job herself and stealing some puffs. Instead of giving them back to him, she put them inside one of her pouches.

 

“That’s stealing,” he complained as they made their way up his apartment stairs together. 

 

“Call the police, then,” Sakura replied, a cheerful smile on her face. It was a bit of a dick move but she didn’t want him to fall back to old, destructive habits.

 

“You’re a menace,” Genma said, huffing a laugh that almost sent them down the stairs. She felt him pause when they reached Shizune's floor, but with a sigh he kept walking and Sakura didn’t bring it up. She couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for him.

 

They got inside, Sakura helping him out of his shoes and then bending to unzip her boots. Genma collapsed on his sofa, sighing heavily and staring unseeingly at the ceiling. 

 

“Will you be okay by yourself?” Sakura asked, ready to spend the night by his side if he needed her to. But Genma nodded and smiled slightly at her.

 

“It’s been a day already and the breakup didn’t kill me,” he said sarcastically but looking assured. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“So yesterday, huh?” Sakura asked, feeling oddly guilty for having left the bar without him the night before. 

 

“Yep.” Genma popped the ‘p’ and nodded. “She already came by this morning to get her things.”

 

Sakura hummed, her hands on her hips as she surveyed his posture and features.

 

“Okay. Tomorrow, noon.” She stepped forward to give him a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll come pick you up and you better be awake.”

 

“Hai, hai.” Genma smiled at her and this time it reached his eyes. “See you tomorrow.”

 

“See ya, Gen-chan.”

 

Sakura took three steps down the stairs before pausing. 

 

She bit her lip, a strange energy taking over her whole body, making her stomach flutter uncomfortably. For a second, her breaths were short and she could actually hear her heart in her ears. She filled her lungs with as much air as they could hold, her hands tightening into fists as she stiffened all of the muscles in her body to stop herself from following through with the thought that fleeted quickly through her head. It was just a simple, thoughtless, impulse, but it was enough to make her heart start fighting a war with her brain. 

 

Go to him.

 

In the end, there wasn’t even a conscious decision. Sakura spun on one foot, went back up the stairs, past Genma’s apartment to the end of the hall to knock on Kakashi’s door. 

  

She had felt his chakra when she first got there and it only registered in the back of her mind, but she still knew that he was home. She was cursing herself, contemplating just shunshining the fuck away from there as a few agonising seconds passed. 

 

Sakura fully expected Kakashi to either pretend he wasn’t home or take his sweet time opening the door before sending her on her way. She hadn’t expected for him to only take those few seconds to open the door, his mask pooled around his neck. 

 

She stared wide-eyed at him for a couple of beats. He was wearing his “pyjamas” but didn’t look particularly sleepy, so she figured he had been reading before she knocked. Kakashi was looking at her with a blank expression on his face but Sakura somehow felt that was more intimate than if he had greeted her with anything else. 

 

This wasn’t the kind of expression he used to hide things, this wasn’t a fake smile, a crinkled eye and a teasing joke about being late. This was Kakashi, open and unmasked, waiting for her reaction and taking his cues from her. He wasn’t pushing her away.

 

After a while, he stepped back, giving her room to step inside the apartment with him. They stayed in the tiny genkan, illuminated only by the floor lamp next to his sofa behind him. 

 

“You’re not running.” It seemed like her mouth had been completely disconnected from her body because she had no intention of saying that, even if it was the truth. Sakura actually had absolutely no idea what she wanted to say.

 

So many emotions flitted across Kakashi’s face then, it made Sakura dizzy with the knowledge that he was letting her see all of it. He seemed surprised at first, maybe from the fact that she had figured he would run and that she had actually said it.Then he seemed scared, like he was terrified by the notion that she knew him so well and also that he wasn’t running away. Beneath it all there was an undeniable heat that Sakura understood to her core. Having him open up to her and being open in return felt heady, like there wasn’t enough air and like every cell of her was thrumming with life. 

 

“No, I’m…” Kakashi shrugged a little then looked at her head-on. “I think I’m tired of running.”

 

Sakura nodded, feeling incredibly happy and at ease even as she continued to play it safe. She licked her lips, nodded again and avoided looking at him before a small smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. When she looked back at him, his expression had softened into something completely intimate that stole her breath away.

 

“Okay,” she murmured into the semi darkness.

 

And then Kakashi was stepping into her space, his gloveless hand tilting her head by her jaw so he could fit his lips against hers. Sakura sighed against his lips, bringing her hand to rest over his heart when he deepened the kiss. Kakashi kissed her lazily, like he had all the time in the world and was savouring every second of it. 

 

He pulled away with a small bite to her lower lip that had Sakura following him, the hand not on his chest moving to the back of his neck so she could pull him back down to her. 

 

Kakashi chuckled slightly and Sakura could feel him smiling against her, she couldn’t help but mirror it. He kissed her again, this time not pulling back until the kiss naturally calmed and even then only moving far enough to rest his forehead against hers. They stayed like that for a few moments, just appreciating the fact that this was actually happening and they weren’t going to keep lying to each other and to themselves anymore.

 

“We should…” Sakura trailed off, feeling uncertain and completely insecure. It had been a long time since her old insecurity reared its ugly head, and it was honestly jarring. She had learned how to be confident in her skills and her actions on the battlefield outside the village, as well as the hidden one that was Konoha’s political field. However, she had completely shied away from anything like this. She sighed, feeling a bit annoyed at herself and pulled back further so she could properly look in his eye. “We should probably talk.”

 

Kakashi, to his credit, only showed a bit of his apprehension before nodding slowly. He squeezed the hand that had sneakily made its way to her waist and pointed his chin towards the kitchen.

 

“I’m going to make us some tea.” He took a step back, taking the slight step up into the apartment, making him considerably taller than Sakura. “You can make yourself comfortable.”

 

But because Sakura didn’t want to let any awkwardness set in and mostly, yes, because she wanted to feel him again, she pulled him down by his neck as she rose on her tiptoes to meet him halfway. It wasn’t exactly comfortable but Kakashi did release a little sigh when she accidentally pulled on his hair and that alone made it worth it. When they pulled away this time, Kakashi was looking at her with a raised eyebrow, equal parts teasing and aroused as if to say, “Are you done now?”

 

Sakura shrugged one shoulder unapologetically and bent to get her boots off. She expected him to go away to get started on their tea but instead he just leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and watched her.

 

“Were you at the bar?” he asked unexpectedly and Sakura shot him a look through a curtain of her hair as she fought with the zipper. Kakashi uncrossed his arm and used one hand to hold her hair away from her face. “You taste like whisky and smoke.”

 

“Ah.” Sakura was suddenly flustered. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was talking about how she tasted and that put ideas in her head or if it was because of their position, her head level with his hips, bent over as she was and him holding her hair. Still, Sakura felt her cheeks burn but managed not to stammer when she replied, “Genma and Shizune broke up.”

 

Kakashi hummed in reply, one eyebrow rising slightly but not making any further comments on that. Sakura figured it was safe to disclose this to him because even if he didn’t already know, he would pretty soon and it would be good to have someone else looking after Genma.

 

“I should… probably go brush my teeth,” Sakura tried to joke but it mostly fell flat because Kakashi was staring very intently at her. She got out of her boots and stepped up to join him in the living room but Kakashi didn’t let go of his hold on her hair. 

 

“You can if you want, but that’s not necessary. I happen to quite like how you taste.” Kakashi’s words were slightly teasing but his dark eye was glued to hers, completely serious. He slowly brought his hand through her hair and when he reached the end, he lifted it up to his nose. “And how you smell.”

 

A shiver ran down her spine. Was he playing with her? It didn’t feel like it but still, it was a bit unfair that he would say and do those things when she was trying to be a grown-up and have an actual conversation about them before jumping back into bed. Sakura scoffed slightly, unable to handle the way he was looking at her like he would gladly devour her and not jump into his arms. 

 

“Right,” Kakashi chuckled slightly. “Tea.”

 

And with that he nodded, let go of her hair and turned towards the kitchen. Sakura took a bit longer but eventually she went through his room towards the en suite. She peed quickly, washed her hands and splashed some cold water on her warm cheeks before moving to actually brush her teeth. No matter what he said, she now felt self- conscious that she had gone to him with alcohol and cigarette on her breath. That she had gone to him at all . 

 

She stopped short when she saw the green toothbrush she had used the night before, sitting inside the cup on the counter. 

 

Sakura felt ridiculously giddy as she brushed her teeth, wondering how a simple act could mean so much. Not only did he expect her to come back but he wanted her to. Actively wanted her to encroach on his personal space and made room for her. She suddenly felt her confidence coming back. 

 

I’ve got it, she thought, we’ ve got it. 

 

When she went back to the living room, Kakashi was just turning the kitchen lights off. The two mugs were already on his rickety coffee table, next to Icha Icha Tactics . She sat down on his couch like she had done it countless times before and he joined her soon after, both of them taking a corner and turning slightly to stare at the other after they grabbed their cups. 

 

The green tea probably wasn’t a good idea this late at night but it did help calm her nerves even further. Knowing that she was the one to instigate the talk and that Kakashi would have probably gone happily on without it, Sakura took a deep breath to steady herself.

 

“You’re an irreplaceable person in my life, Kakashi.” Sakura startled the two of them with that but she knew it was the truth so she didn’t back down. “I don’t want this… this to fuck it up.”

 

Kakashi licked his lips, his eye looking everywhere in her face but not settling for long in one place like he was cataloguing every single thing about her features even without the Sharingan open. 

 

“I get it,” he said simply. Of course he did. Kakashi already knew that she considered him family and she knew he did the same. The sense of pack was intrinsic in their interactions and it had been building since he had given her the wolves, maybe even since he first got assigned to their team and had stood between her and death. There were no words to describe their bond, but both of them felt it. Deeply and clearly. “We won’t let it.”

 

And there was that. The two of them were nothing if not determined. There was just something else she had to address. 

 

“I kind of… Tsunade knows.” Sakura shrugged one shoulder, averting her eyes because she was feeling slightly embarrassed that she had actually told the woman already. It was stupid to feel like that, she knew, but still. “I’d rather we keep it to ourselves, though. There’s still a lot to come, I’m not sure this is a distraction we need to have out in the open for everyone to have an opinion about when we’ll need everyone as united as possible.”

 

Kakashi nodded slightly then moved to place his cup on the table, taking hers along. When he settled back, he did so much closer than before, his thigh brushing her knee, one of his arms on the backrest and the other going back to playing with her hair. 

 

“We’ll keep it between us for now…” He smirked slightly at her, “and Tsunade.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes at his teasing but there was a smile on her face as he chuckled slightly. Kakashi didn’t even give her a chance to look back towards him before he was kissing her again, like he couldn’t go long without touching her. Sakura completely understood the sentiment. 

 

They kissed slowly, not letting it progress into the frantic need that had driven them the night before but still letting it build into a slow burn that warmed her up from inside and made her sigh. Until she remembered the look Tsunade had sent her earlier that night. 

 

“Also, eh…” Sakura broke away from the kiss but didn’t pull back and spoke the next words against his incredibly soft lips, fast so he wouldn’t have much time to react but also so she could go back to kissing him. “Tsunade told Genma you would fill in for him for the next few days.”

 

Despite her silent protest and slight pout, Kakashi pulled away and settled back against the couch. The hand that had been previously on her hair dropped to the armrest on his right but the one he had placed behind her on the backrest slid forward until he could cart his fingers through her hair in the back of her head. 

 

“Maa, Sakura- hime , barely a day into our new arrangement and you’re already making things hard for me,” he drawled, his fingers scratching her scalp slightly before sliding down to rest against the nape of her neck. 

 

Sakura shivered again, and this time felt something like annoyance that he could so easily play her body like that. With a determined and slightly mischievous look in her eyes, she moved to straddle him. Kakashi didn’t look surprised, only slightly curious when she braced one hand on the back of the sofa and the other nudged his jaw up so she could brush her lips against his.

 

She teased him with the almost kiss, slowly sliding closer towards him but keeping her hold on his face so he wouldn’t be able to deepen it. The hand that had still been resting against the couch grabbed her waist when she slowly ground down on him, his fingers stopping just short of the middle of her back and his thumb firmly against her ribcage. 

 

“Do you want to stop?” she asked, the words a quiet mutter pressed against his slightly opened lips.

 

“Not particularly, no.” Kakashi seemed to realise she wasn’t about to let him get any closer to properly kiss her, so he simply relaxed against the sofa, his head slightly tilted up and a small grin on his lips like he was waiting to see what she would do. 

 

She narrowed her eyes at him, not liking that he wasn’t as affected by this as he probably should have been but thoroughly enjoying the challenge all the same. Sakura leaned forward to capture his plump lips in a searing kiss, one that was equal parts to tease him but also to satisfy her need to taste him again. She balanced herself on both knees to leave her hands free to attack his shirt and didn’t waste any time getting it off him. 

 

Kakashi brought her haori down with his hands to pool on the ground. He still had a faintly amused air to his features but instead of being annoyed by it now, Sakura could only appreciate how easy this was for them. She kissed the smile off his face all the same, sucking and biting until he grunted into her mouth and only then she was satisfied. 

 

Sakura kissed her way down his neck, paying special attention to the spot beneath his ear that made his hands tighten on her hips. She almost involuntarily ground against him again, the motion aided by his hands as she buried her whole face in his neck.

 

His scent was intoxicating. She could stay there smelling him all night long and even though she first registered the urge as odd , it felt incredibly natural to be able to smell some of her mingled along with his scent. Some deep part of her purred at the knowledge that he smelt like he was hers. She bit down on his neck hard enough for him to groan, his hips lifting up into hers. 

 

“You have three seconds to get this off before I cut it off,” Kakashi rasped, pulling at the tight material of her bodysuit. Sakura brought his hands to the back of her neck where there was a hidden clasp and took her hitai-ate off from around her neck where she had taken to wearing it. 

 

“So impatient,” Sakura teased, smirking at him when she noticed his face was considerably more serious now, the same intent focus he had the night before nudging his amusement away as he shoved the bodysuit down to her hips. 

 

“I plan on taking my time tonight, Sakura,” Kakashi said, both of his hands coming to gently glide across the newly revealed skin, his eyes on her chest. “You didn’t heal these.”

 

Kakashi meant the bruises he’d left all over her neck and chest. She had healed the ones on her shoulder and the ones high up on her neck near her jaw but left the ones that could be hidden, for some reason enjoying the fact that she could look in the mirror anytime and see the marks he left on her. 

 

“I like them,” Sakura said, the sentence ending with a gasp as his thumb pressed not so gently into a particularly big mark on the base of her throat. The slight strike of pain went straight to her core and the fact that he had temporarily constricted her airways made her hips stutter forward. 

 

Kakashi opened both his eyes, the Sharingan shining in the semi-darkness of his living room as he observed her. His hands moved to her breasts, his fingers rolling her hardened nipples until she hummed and tilted her hips, eyes half-closed. Too soon, he left her breasts to unclasp her pouches and drop them behind her and then he didn’t waste any time before moving to open her pants. 

 

Sakura got up quickly, expecting to slide off her pants as quickly as possible before getting back to him but with a chakra enhanced movement, Kakashi switched their positions so she was sitting on the sofa instead. She had barely gotten her pants past her ass but that didn’t stop him from kneeling down between her legs and pulling them the rest of the way down. 

 

Sakura felt impossibly hot and kind of wished he would hurry up and take the rest of her clothes off but Kakashi seemed satisfied with the way things were. She was sure the sight of him, kneeling between her legs and smirking at her like that with both eyes locked on hers, would be forever ingrained in her brain. 

 

“I’ve wanted to taste you for quite some time now, you know,” Kakashi said conversationally, as if he wasn’t talking about going down on her. He picked one of her legs up so he could slide his shoulder beneath it, still not looking anywhere but at her. “Once I’d smelled your arousal, Sakura, it was the only thing I could think about.”

 

Sakura’s breath hitched as he used one hand to push both her bodysuit and underwear to the side. The anticipation was killing her, having him so close to her but not touching her anywhere vital was enough to drive her mad. With an embarrassing whimper and her heel urging him closer, Sakura gripped the cushions.

 

“Kakashi…” Sakura whispered, not wanting to admit she was really close to pleading. It looked like he was going to make her do it, but after a moment of tense deliberation, Kakashi bowed his head until he could close his mouth around her. 

 

The sensation forced a gasp out of her and then he was moving slightly back so he could swipe his tongue in a broad stroke from her entrance to her clit. Sakura couldn’t take her eyes off him, her mouth hanging open as she tried to get enough air into her lungs. She didn’t think she’d ever been this aroused in her entire life. 

 

Kakashi repeated the action once, twice and on the third time when he reached her clit, he sucked. The warmth of his tongue and mouth made heat spread from her core and Sakura could only clutch at the cushions and gasp, a slight moan at the end. She threw her head back when he kept at it, alternating between flicking the tip of his tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerves and sucking it.

 

Sakura panted raggedly, one hand going straight to her breast to pinch at her nipple, the other burying in her hair. She was afraid that if she grabbed him in the state she was in, she was going to hurt him or rip his sofa to shreds.

 

Kakashi had focused on his task, his head bowed so she could only see his nose pushing against the trimmed hair between her legs and the top of his head, his hair falling boyishly over his brow. When Sakura released a few heartfelt curses, though, he pulled her further down so he could keep working and look at her. 

 

“Fuck, Kakashi ,” Sakura panted, her hips canting forward, trying to ride his mouth. He kept his hold firm, not letting her move as he continued with his pace, constant and unhurried, building up her pleasure to a breaking point but never quite getting to the point to throw her over the edge. 

 

He added a finger inside her and it almost felt like a reward for her being vocal though he didn’t up his pace yet. Sakura thought she was going to go insane when he added another finger, crooking them slightly to press on the sweet spot inside her. Sakura whimpered, a ragged moan breaking free from her lips when he sucked again on her clit. 

 

“Are you going to come for me, Sakura?” Kakashi pulled back, pressing an open mouthed kiss on her inner thigh when she protested. His fingers kept working her up but he seemed intent on driving her insane, still. “I want to hear you. C’mon, you’re doing so well already. Let me see you come again, you taste so fucking good.”

 

Sakura whimpered at his words, forcing her eyes to stay open and focused on him as she felt searing pleasure wind tightly in her core, the heat starting to spread. She could barely breathe, only gasp as he sped his fingers up. Kakashi locked his eyes with hers, the tomoe of the Sharingan spinning wildly, then he closed his mouth around her clit again and sucked in time with his fingers.

 

The coil of pleasure snapped , completely overwhelming her senses. Sakura rode the waves of her orgasm as Kakashi eased her along with his fingers. The build up had been so intense it was taking her longer to come back from the release, feeling breathless and like she could float away if Kakashi didn’t keep his firm hold of her.

 

Kakashi was kissing her thigh when she came back to herself, humming his pleasure quietly at seeing her come, his fingers still inside her but not moving anymore. 

 

“ Fuck,” Sakura hissed with feeling, still a little out of sorts. Kakashi chuckled and retreated his fingers, earning a weak gasp from her. He pressed another kiss to her thigh before getting up, both his hands working to get his pants and underwear off. 

 

Now that her orgasm had left only pleasurable aftershocks, Sakura was once again overwhelmed by the need to have him inside her. Usually after a strong orgasm like that, she didn’t really want to keep going, especially after the somewhat tiring day she had, but Sakura felt ravenous for more. It felt like she was somehow making up for the weeks of tension between them, especially their days together for her aunt’s mission.

 

Kakashi started leaning over, trying to climb onto the sofa on top of her but Sakura quickly changed their positions just like he had done before. In a flash of probably improper use of chakra, Sakura controlled his fall so he could sit and she could straddle his lap like they had been before. 

 

“I want to ride you,” she said, feeling particularly proud of the surprised look on his face and the fact that she had put it there. Despite her words, Sakura didn’t immediately jump in, wanting to get a little bit of an edge over him, especially after all the work he had put on her.

 

“Go ahead then,” Kakashi said, leaning completely back so his neck was braced against the back of the sofa. Even in a not exactly dominant position, Kakashi still held control of the room. Sakura didn’t mind, not at all , and she wasn’t about to go pushing that particular boundary of his for now, but she would enjoy him falling apart beneath her, completely at her mercy. 

 

Sakura smirked at him, her eyes issuing a challenge that he gladly accepted. She wrapped a hand around his thick length, appreciating it in a way she hadn’t been able to the night before. It really was no surprise that it had hurt, Kakashi was exceptional in all areas. Sakura felt the weight of him in her hands, traced the vein that ran the underside of his cock and pressed her thumb gently against his slit, catching the bead of precum there and spreading it around his head. 

 

She wanted to get down on her knees and taste him, the urge suddenly so strong she licked her lips, but that would have to wait for another day. With only the smallest amounts of chakra, Sakura stimulated his sexual glands, releasing more hormones and being able to reach his prostate without even moving her fingers.

 

Kakashi gasped. 

 

“Is that… Is that chakra ?” he asked, breathless in a way that she had never heard before and thoroughly appreciated. Sakura kept her eyes on his face, watching as his eyes hooded even further, the furrow between his brows deepening as his jaw slackened.

 

Sakura pressed a kiss to his lips, just because they looked delicious like that, still glistening with her release and slightly open. She pressed her tongue inside and Kakashi surged forward as she kept a steady stream of chakra to continue stimulating him. He kissed her hungrily, like he only had that one chance to do so and Sakura moaned into it with him.

 

Both of his large hands were on her ass then, squeezing and pulling her closer to him with a lack of finesse that Sakura had never associated with Kakashi. She moaned again as he angled her to grind against his erection, her hands unable to reach him anymore and she had to cut the chakra manipulation.

 

“Fuck,” Kakashi broke the kiss, panting slightly and still using his hands to rock her above him. He leaned his head back again, somehow managing to regain his composure now that she had cut the chakra flow. Sakura smirked again, reminding him of the challenge and he huffed a laugh. “You really are a mean little jerk, Sakura.”

 

Not having the patience to keep up the game for long, Sakura raised on her knees to make room for him to enter her. She took him in slowly, gently rising and falling until she had him all inside her and their pelvises met. She couldn’t help the little moan that escaped her when she saw the look on his face, completely enraptured by her, his eye so dark it was almost black, and the Sharingan intently trained on her. 

 

She rocked her hips slowly, enjoying being so absolutely full like she was and enjoying even more the way he groaned in the back of his throat when she tightened her inner walls. 

 

The need to move became too strong to ignore and Sakura quickly let go of the game in favour of getting more friction. The pace she set wasn’t exactly fast but it was intense, her small breasts bouncing and her breath leaving her lungs in small bursts, sometimes intermingled with a moan.

 

She had the sudden realisation that this was Kakashi beneath her. Not that she had forgotten but it felt so intense the knowledge that the man who was deep inside her, coaching her up and down his cock with his hands, was someone who truly knew her in her core. They locked eyes again and this time Sakura didn’t look away.

 

She didn’t know if he could read her thoughts on her face or if he somehow felt the same thing she had but his hands left her ass, one of them to stroke her back and the other tangling in the hair on the nape of her neck. He used his hold on her to bring her forward and then kissed her slowly, almost like his cock wasn’t inside of her. 

 

The kiss was still enough to curl her toes, take her breath right out of her lungs, especially when he squeezed his hands and tightened his hold on her. She couldn’t believe she was this close to coming again. 

 

With renewed effort, Sakura leaned back just enough so she could up her pace, bouncing on him to draw the reactions that she wanted out of him. She was close, but she absolutely wanted to see him come before she did. 

 

“Kakashi,” she gasped when he changed his angle slightly. A couple of breathless moans later, she leaned back, one hand bracing on his knee and the other pressed low on his abdomen. 

 

To anyone else, it would have been hard to do the level of chakra manipulation while lost in the throes of passion but Sakura wasn’t just anyone. For her, chakra control came as easily as breathing so she renewed her efforts and focused on stimulating him like she had before. Kakashi grunted again, sounding just as breathless as before.

 

“I’m not gonna last if you keep pulling this shit.” His tone was harsh but Sakura took no offence to it as he moaned deep in his throat, sounding a bit desperate. Their eyes were locked again and she could see the exact moment he realised she was doing it on purpose.

 

“I want to see you come, Kakashi,” Sakura managed to say between gasps. The full body shudder that went through him brought a smirk to her lips even as she moaned helplessly. 

 

The hand that had still been buried in her hair suddenly left, sliding down her body and only pausing quickly to pinch at one nipple until she gasped before it continued down. He circled her clit once, twice, three times and then a little zap of chakra shocked her into crying out his name. 

 

She stared wide eyed at him, unable to keep her orgasm from coming any longer. She tried to hold it in, squeezing her inner walls again to urge him along but she didn’t have a hold of her chakra anymore, too far gone to be able to keep stimulating him as she was. 

 

“Fuck, ah! ” Sakura panted heavily, she was about to burst , her eyes were already rolling to the back of her head, and then came another tiny zap and she was gone. 

 

Distantly, Sakura could recognise that Kakashi had pulled her closer, his voice mingling with hers as he pulsed his release deep inside of her, but it all seemed kind of disconnected from her reality. The orgasm that wracked through her body was even more intense than the last one to the point that it almost verged on too much, and unlike the last one, it completely took every single ounce of energy from Sakura.

 

She panted weakly against Kakashi’s shoulder, her muscles twitching slightly as he hugged her to him. His hands glided on the sweaty skin of her back in soothing passes, squeezed her thighs and pulled her closer. Sakura whimpered weakly as his softened dick slipped out of her, some of their cum slipping out and pooling uncomfortably on their thighs.

 

“You’re so mean,” Sakura complained, still slightly breathless with her face hidden against his shoulder and neck. 

 

His hands paused momentarily before continuing.

 

“Was it too much?” he asked quietly, sounding as tired as her. He unstuck some of her hair from her back and put it to the side so her neck was exposed to the cool air. 

 

Sakura buried deeper against him and shook her head slightly.

 

“No, but almost,” she answered, not exactly eloquent. She wanted to talk to him about the curious use of nature chakra and how he had made it into something that didn’t hurt but she was completely and utterly exhausted and all that came out of her mouth was a tiny protest when she tried to unstick herself from him.

 

“Shower?” he asked, sounding equally tired but this time a bit more present. 

 

“Yes, please,” Sakura murmured against his neck because even though all she wanted to do was fall asleep right where they were, both of them were pretty disgusting. “But you’re going to have to carry me, I don’t think my legs are working.”

 

Kakashi chuckled under his breath, pressed a kiss to the top of her head and heaved both of them up. Sakura barely had enough strength to wrap her legs properly around him but she clung on with what little she had and, when they finally reached the bathroom, she had regained some of her alertness. 

 

He turned on just one of the lights and moved to turn on the hot water while Sakura sat on the toilet to flush her system and pee. She could probably do it tomorrow with no problem but peeing in front of each other wasn’t exactly something she was particularly self-conscious about. With indeed shaky legs, she stepped into the shower with him. 

 

It felt a bit surreal that this would be the second shower they took together that day. Despite their first one being comfortable and scarily easy, this one somehow felt like the two of them were even closer. Sakura pulled her hair into a high bun to refrain from getting it wet but Kakashi didn’t bother to avoid washing his and the two traded soft kisses while they cleaned each other up. 

 

Sakura dried herself a bit clumsily when they got out and left the towel there, suddenly craving the soft feeling of his bed. She fell on top of it bonelessly, still naked and kind of cold but not bothering to get up to go look for some clothes. Kakashi used the bathroom lazily, first the toilet and then brushing his teeth without hurry, and when he stepped inside his room, he didn’t immediately join her in bed. 

 

Sakura could hear him putting on clothes and then moving to the living room where the sound of fabric moving could be heard. He turned off the lights and finally joined her in the bedroom, closing the door behind him. The sound of more fabric again before he closed the curtains and then he was pulling her up.

 

“C’mon, don’t fall asleep on me yet,” he murmured while Sakura protested weakly. 

 

With her eyes half-closed it came as a surprise when he pulled a sweater over her head. Her hair fell from its bun in messy waves down her back as Sakura pulled her arms through the sleeves and squinted at the man standing before her next to the bed.

 

“Do you want pants?” he asked and Sakura shook her head a bit, offering him a dopey smile.

 

“Just get in here with me, Kakashi,” she demanded, getting beneath the sheets herself. 

 

He climbed over her so he could be between her and the wall and then turned off the lights with the light switch on the wall next to him, surrounding them in darkness. His arms were around her, hugging her from behind before she could even muster enough energy to sprawl across his chest.

 

“I should probably get you some water,” he pressed the words against her neck before it turned into a lazy open-mouthed kiss.

 

Humming a little, Sakura loosened his embrace enough so she could turn to lie on her back to see him better. She brought the hand furthest away from him to cup his jaw, scratching slightly at the light stubble there before pulling him to her. 

 

They kissed like that for a few long minutes, his tongue caressing hers gently and his sharp canines catching on her bottom lip with a tiny bite before he pulled back slightly.

 

“I’m okay,” she whispered, pressing another lingering kiss to his lips. “Go to sleep now.”

 

Kakashi hummed then lazily kissed his way down to her neck where he stopped. They had somehow inverted the position she mostly slept in, this time his head pillowed by her chest, one of his legs between hers and Sakura realised that as thoroughly fucked as she felt, he certainly looked and sounded the same. So she fell asleep there with Kakashi’s hair tickling her face, his warm breaths puffing softly against her neck and with a slight smile on her face.

 

Notes:

OOF. I, uh, I didn’t think it would take me a year to post this chapter lmfao life is insane.

A lot of things happened over here and keeping any online presence that required even just a bit of effort felt like pulling teeth so I… kinda didn’t? But not really, I was still around lol, but y’know a lot less. Life threw me a couple of curve balls and I’m just overall grateful that I have the means to keep myself okay and wonderful people around me to keep me going. A brief recap of the last year: I lost all my will to write and create, I dropped outta college, I found out I have A LOT of health issues and many of them give me chronic pain, I kept jumping around from doctor to doctor, I did so many exams I think the blood wasted could have saved at least two grown men, my mental health went to shit, I got diagnosed with the ADHD/Depresh/Anxiety trio, I had a string of bad luck in my family and I found out after going to two different surgeons that surgeries wouldn’t help me so now I’m back trying to figure out what the fuck to do to make it better.

Despite it all, nothing I have is fatal or too worrisome so it’s kinda okay. Also, after spending a lot of my time 🎶lost with no direction 🎶 I do in fact know what I wanna do with my life now which is great for my mental health in general lmfao. I’m currently studying to go back to uni, this time for a course that actually makes sense for me which is Medicine. Now. I’m not sure how med courses work in y’all’s countries but here in Brazil is really hard to get into a school so I’m working my ass off, I have classes from mon to sat from 7:20-13:00 and most of the afternoons. AND IT’S GLORIOUS. Working my mind towards something was like a big bucket of cold water over my head, shocking but weirdly energising lmao. I didn’t get back to writing… yet. But, like, after a year of getting nauseous just looking at a google doc, now I started to actually want to write which… I can’t describe how monumental it feels rn. I also have been “writing” a lot in the back of my head lol so there’s that.

I started using my AO3 profile to keep y’all updated on what I’m working on at the moment in case I don’t update soon or I don’t answer comments/asks/etc if my anxiety gets me in a chokehold again. So any news will defs be there! I can’t promise I’ll update anytime soon but I’ll definitely finish this. Everything is ready, I have every single detail mapped out and even a tentative snapshot sequel so yeah. I don’t know how long it will take me but I’ll get there. For those of you who are like me and get anxious whenever you don’t hear from someone on the internet for long I just want to assure you that I have people in my life who would let u know if something actually happened to me so if you don’t hear from me, there’s no need to be alarmed, I probably stepped back to deal with shit lol. Sorry if I worried some of you!

Honestly, I was so so overwhelmed with the amount of love u guys showered me with!!! In the best way possible, ofc, I’m so so lucky to have you guys with me. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep updating every Friday, I know it’s what you guys prefer, it’s what I would like to do, tbh, but know that this is actually my best :’) I feel disappointed in myself even though I know most of you have been really sweet about it all… Anyway, I legit love u guys, thank you so much for everything!!

BTW! THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO YOU. YEAH YOU HEARD IT, I TURN 23 AND YOU GET A NEW CHAPTER! Dedicated to everyone who commented but esp to the OG who sent me a happy birthday through the comment section earlier this day. Yo, you legit are the reason I posted this today lol

Chapter 46: Sakura’s Duty

Notes:

… Happy Fire Friday 👀

I couldn’t have done this without my beta A and my bby Ume. I love you guys.

Sakura skipped from one branch to the other, her tantou in hand and a carefree laugh escaping every now and then. The rush of the cold morning air was exhilarating and she couldn’t help but close her eyes to enjoy it better while the wind tousled her hair.

 

“You can’t fight with your eyes closed, Sakura-hime!” Hikari complained. “It makes us look bad!”

 

Sakura laughed again, dodging the swipe of his paws and bending backwards into a handspring to escape Misaki’s corresponding attack. Kaede took her place before Misaki could recover and closed his jaw around her neck lightly, tagging her and turning her into their team. 

 

It was a usual training exercise Sakura did with her pack. It started with only Kaede and her against the other eight wolves and whoever they tagged got turned to their team until there was only one wolf left on the other team. Then Sakura would immediately partner with them and it would start again, the pack only stopping when it was after eight in the morning or when they were too exhausted to keep going. 

 

Sakura had woken up that morning with her nose buried in Kakashi’s chest. It wasn’t as startling as the first time that had happened before they went to the Hinote no Shuto mission but it still sent her heart galloping. She had thankfully managed to ready herself for her workout without waking him up but it was still a bit… nerve wracking. 

 

Even though a part of her settled with his scent in her nostrils and his strong arms around her, another perked up in awareness, like she had touched a live wire. She wasn’t exactly sure at what point they had crossed a line between them but she was sure they were pretty much already past the point of no return. It scared and exhilarated her in equal measure.

 

“So the pup is your mate, finally?” Kaoru asked rudely when they settled next to the waterfall in training ground sixty-seven to cool down and drink some water. 

 

Sakura frowned but thankfully didn’t choke around her bottle.

 

“What do you mean finally , old man?” she asked, a bit annoyed. 

 

The old wolf snorted and if the upper half of his face wasn’t covered with those old dirtied bandages, Sakura was sure he would be sending her the most deadpan look a wolf could manage. Hotaka laughed uproariously from her left and Kimi giggled quietly with her head resting on his back. 

 

“You can feel those things, Sakura-hime,” Hotaka said, deep raspy voice sounding all too amused. “Nothing to be embarrassed about, but we could feel the way his scent mingled with yours for a while now.”

 

Sakura grumbled a bit but there wasn’t a lot of heat behind it even as her cheeks burned. She couldn’t even blame it on the weather because they were almost reaching winter and they were all beneath the shade of a copse of trees. Sakura sighed.

 

“Shouldn’t we be married for him to be considered my mate?” Sakura asked before taking another sip of her water. “Wolves mate for life, right? That’s a pretty serious commitment to make after fucking a couple of times.”

 

She found no reason to measure her words when she was in the safety of her pack. And it was a valid question. Despite their talk the night before, Sakura was aware of the fact that they hadn’t made any promises besides not letting their new arrangements fuck up what they had. She was incredibly relieved to have had that talk and felt good knowing they were on the same page but she was equally glad they hadn’t put any labels or made any promises. Sakura wasn’t sure she was ready for it.

 

“Usually, yes,” Kimi answered. “But not always. A mate is something that goes much deeper than labels like you humans love.”

 

“And if you want to find a word then I believe the best fitting one is partner, Sakura-hime,” Yukari said timidly, her ears flicking back and forward as she looked at Sakura with kind eyes. 

 

Sakura hummed contemplatively then nodded a bit.

 

“Yeah,” she sighed, burying her fingers deep into Kaede’s fur where he rested his head on her lap. “I guess we are partners.”

 

“Tch,” Kaede rolled his electric blue eyes. “Pointless to be discussing this. The pup is yours and you are the pup’s. End of story.”

 

“Again, the pup is almost three decades older than you, pup .” Sakura laughed and ruffled his fur playfully, her pack’s laughter echoing around her. 

 

She went home shortly after and then took a shower. Her bed was empty but made and Tsunade could be heard puttering around her room if Sakura focused her enhanced hearing. She didn’t linger in the shower and didn’t bother drying her hair, just washed off her sweat and let it hang wet down her back while she got ready for the day before meeting her shishou at the kitchen to have a quick meal with Shizune, who had just arrived. 

 

That Sunday she would oversee Keiichi’s workshop for a couple of hours and then move over to the training mat to oversee some of the rookies. She didn’t bother with her ANBU uniform, however, seeing as it was technically her day off and she wasn’t there to teach, simply to oversee. 

 

Before going to get Genma, she stopped by Tsunade’s office to see if the woman needed anything. 

 

“Close the door,” Tsunade barked as soon as she jumped through the window. 

 

Sakura didn’t waste any time in doing so, pulsing her chakra around her to check for hidden signatures while Tsunade activated the privacy seal, necessary not only because it was the middle of the day but because it wasn’t Team Ro’s shift at the guard post. 

 

“Naruto and Jiraiya are probably going to be here by the end of the week.”

 

Sakura faltered in her next step while she made her way to where Tsunade was perched on the corner of her desk. For a second she just stared at her shishou with wild eyes, unmoving, and the rest of her face a blank slate.

 

“I didn’t know they were planning on coming back yet,” Sakura managed to say around the knot in her throat. 

 

Tsunade nodded and massaged her temples with one hand, the other crossed underneath her breasts to support her elbow. 

 

“I sent a coded message to Jiraiya a long time ago so he would keep an eye out for Itachi,” she said, closing her eyes briefly and concentrating a bit of healing chakra to fix what seemed to be a headache. “A frog just arrived with a message announcing their arrival. A formal one, no talk of Itachi in sight. The council already knows about it.”

 

Sakura hummed and crossed her own arms over her stomach, feeling a bit off kilter by the suddenness of it. Something must have changed. Either he had a pretty good lead on where Itachi was or his movements or it was something more sinister, something that would mean it would be better for Naruto to be in the village.

 

“They’ll want to bind Naruto to Konoha,” Sakura said after a while. Tsunade scoffed and nodded, arms dropping to brace her weight on the desk behind her.

 

“It was decided that Team 7 would be reinstituted,” Tsunade said, something shining in her golden eyes that Sakura couldn’t quite identify. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Danzo came around to sneak a spy inside it.”

 

“So let him.” Sakura shrugged. “A spy that we know about can be beneficial to us.”

 

“Yes, but it will make contacting Itachi harder.” Tsunade drummed her nails on the wood and Sakura frowned, feeling a bit helpless.

 

“Maybe…” She sighed, not really knowing a way around this. “Maybe we can make it seem like Jiraiya-sama was just coming around to give you an official report before leaving again?”

 

Tsunade tsked, annoyed and visibly unhappy, before worrying a nail between her teeth as she thought through their newest problem.

 

“It might not work but until we figure something better then we go with it,” she said finally. 

 

Sakura nodded and shot her a smile that wanted to be reassuring but somehow didn’t quite manage it, which Tsunade echoed. 

 

“So… are you ready for the vote today?” Sakura asked. The decision would be made that day to put Toshio on the council or not. The proposal from the day before had been accepted and they would vote on it that afternoon. Sakura was nervous because it had been something she’d advocated for and if it went south, she knew she wouldn’t be able to not see it as her fault. 

 

“I’m confident it will work in our favour,” Tsunade replied, rightfully guessing at Sakura’s apprehension. Sakura’s smile came more easily this time. 

 

After an assessing look and Sakura’s approving nod, Tsunade released the privacy seal.

 

“Do you need help with anything around here?” Sakura asked.

 

“It’s your day off, girl, go home,” Tsunade replied, a fond expression on her face but her eyes were distant, still worrying about their future. 

 

“I’ll see you later, then,” Sakura said with a slight smile.

 

“Sakura,” Tsunade called her back before she could leave. When Sakura turned back around, it was just in time to catch the scroll flying towards her head. “Tell Hatake about Naruto, would you?”

 

Sakura felt her cheeks getting warmer under her shishou’s teasing smirk. She opened the scroll without ceremony and snorted at its content.

 

Before she left, she went over to the army of genin and chunin Tsunade employed to work around the office and told them to get her shishou something to eat and to bar any unnecessary arrivals. She was just about to leave the Tower altogether when Kakashi appeared at the entrance. 

 

He stopped when she did, both of them watching the other as she came down the stairs to the lobby-like first floor of the Tower. He stepped to the side when a team of genin came in behind him and that prompted Sakura to move towards him where he leaned against the set of sofas that constituted the left side of the room, his hands buried deep inside his pockets. 

 

There was a familiar tension created by their locked gazes but neither of them turned away. Sakura smiled slightly and threw the scroll his way once she got closer. 

 

“Sorry,” she said with a shrug, not sounding at all sorry.

 

Kakashi read the scroll quickly and then shot her a flat look before dramatically slumping his shoulders and glancing at the ceiling. Sakura snickered, amused at his reaction to the reminder he’d been assigned to take over captainship of Team Ro for the next three days of guard duty to fill up Genma’s place.

 

“The bastard owes me,” he said and Sakura was wholly unprepared to hear his voice. It wasn’t particularly deep like he sounded first thing in the morning or anything that would constitute as sexual, but they were standing close together, talking casually and quietly just between them and the whole thing just felt… intimate. In a way that made her think about the night before and all the delicious things he’d said to her but also of how everything between them had been so comforting at the same time. Sakura had to fight a shiver at the thought. 

 

“Cut him some slack, he’s heartbroken,” Sakura gave him a pointed look but there was no heat behind it. “I was about to go get him so we could head out for a training session if you want to come?”

 

Kakashi seemed pleasantly surprised by her invitation, as if he had been fully expecting her to just move away and go on with her day. Sakura felt a bit bad that he would assume that of her but in the end was very much satisfied that his mind went in that direction, instead of finding her clingy in any way. The thought made her frown a bit, feeling silly for even thinking it but not dwelling long on the sentiment. 

 

Kakashi nodded and then stepped away from the sofa so they could make their way out of the Tower. His apartment complex was just a few blocks away and they could get there in no time, but Sakura had another idea.

 

“Should we invite Asuma too?”

 

Kakashi seemed to contemplate it for a few seconds before he nodded. With a few quick signs, he summoned Pakkun to tell Asuma to meet them at training ground sixty-seven and then they continued on their way. 

 

“Naruto will probably be here by the time you’re done with guard duty,” Sakura said when they were just a few steps away from his apartment complex. To Kakashi’s credit he didn’t express any surprise, only hummed slightly and stopped just before they went inside. 

 

He turned his head up to look at the sky and there was a faraway look on his face for a few seconds of silence. Sakura stepped closer to him instinctively.

 

“So Team Seven will go back on the roster,” he said at last. 

 

Sakura hummed and nodded, her hand moving slowly to take his wrist between her fingers. She matched her chakra to his and smiled slightly when his breath stuttered in his chest. His chakra wasn’t exactly agitated but there was a certain troubled quality to it that she soothed with her own. When she focused back on him, he was looking at her.

 

His face was soft and appreciative. Something passed between them and while Sakura couldn’t exactly tell what it was, it left her feeling warm and made her stomach flutter uncomfortably. After a few more seconds Kakashi took his hand out of his pocket. For a moment she thought he was going to pull his arm away and was already retreating but he didn’t let her go far.

 

He wasn’t exactly holding her hand, not completely, but when he stepped into the building, his fingers tightened against hers to pull her along. Kakashi moved the chakra on his hand a bit and Sakura caught the hint, mixing their chakra softly as they made their way up the six flights of stairs. He was wearing his usual fingerless gloves but what she could feel of his skin was warm and comforting and Sakura couldn’t help the slight sigh that escaped her lips at the feeling.

 

“You left early today,” Kakashi said once they were on their way up the stairs. He hadn’t let go of her hand yet so she didn’t as well and she had to admit, it did feel good. Especially when they chatted like that, quietly, only for one another. His tone wasn’t exactly upset but there was a question there. Why did you leave before I woke up? 

 

“I usually do my workout very early in the morning,” Sakura explained, feeling like she owed it to him to be honest and not brush everything off after the talk they’d had like part of her wanted to. “Usually Sunday is my day off but since we spent the past week doing absolutely nothing, I thought it might be a good idea to go. The pack was eager to do something other than playing lookout.”

 

Kakashi hummed, his fingers twitching against hers in the non-hand-holding they had going on. 

 

“I wouldn’t mind training with you if you need it.”

 

Sakura almost tripped on the next step. Somehow in all of her weirdly specific fantasies, the ones she had half-asleep or while dreaming, she had never imagined that Kakashi would be the one to reach out like that. Their talk the night before had taken a huge weight off her chest but she had been aware that there was still a huge difference from “not running away” to actively seeking things out. She had been trying to remind herself, vehemently and unyielding, that she would not fall back into her old habits of pining, that she wouldn’t ask for more than what he was already offering but there he was. Asking. 

 

Well, not exactly, he was annoyingly vague in his words but the meaning behind them was clear, especially to someone who knew him like she did. And it hit her then that she did know him. He wasn’t an untouchable presence anymore, showing he cared but always from a distance. Kakashi was right there next to her, his hand in hers and offering something that she somehow would never expect of him. 

 

Sakura huffed a surprised breath that wanted to be a laugh and side eyed him.

 

“Are you sure you’re up for getting up before six?” she teased, a bit uncomfortable with the sudden fluttery feeling in her stomach and wanting to smother it to death. Inner gave the locked box inside her mind a swift kick to quiet the rattling chains.

 

“ You wake up before six?” he asked, sounding all too incredulous. So what, she really wasn’t a morning person. He didn’t have to be rude about it.

 

“I’m usually at the office before nine, so yeah .” Sakura narrowed her eyes at him but he only chuckled. 

 

“Why not do it after?” he asked, amusement still present in his voice.

 

“My days are pretty unpredictable, I can spend twelve hours at the Tower, get called into ANBU, asked to help out at the hospital or even go on emergency missions without much notice. I’d rather have done at least two hours of training before that.” Sakura shrugged. “If I can, I try to squeeze in another two hours and then meditate at night.”

 

Kakashi hummed, sounding vaguely impressed. When she turned her head to look at him he was already looking at her, his gaze intent. Sakura felt her cheeks flush beneath his attention and quickly turned back to focus on the stairs. He chuckled slightly.

 

“You didn’t meditate yesterday,” he said. 

 

“I got distracted.” She gave him a cheeky grin.

 

Kakashi chuckled again, sounding fond and relaxed while his arm brushed her shoulder slightly.

 

“Imagine that.” 

.

 

.

 

.

 

After they’ve had their training session and then lunch with Asuma and Genma, Kakashi went to his post while Sakura went back to help around the office. Despite her shishou’s complaints about it being her day off, she knew she was needed there to pick up the slack while Tsunade stayed locked in with the council all afternoon. 

 

Sakura wished she could have been present for the vote but she knew that wasn’t her place in this war. For now she would work from the shadows, and try to improve herself the best she could until the fight inevitably came. And then she would do whatever it took to protect Konoha from its bloody past.

 

That night when she came home, Tsunade had summoned Team Ro. They needed to keep an eye on Koharu and Homura to make sure their bait had worked, and their best bet was that night. So Sakura left with one of Tenzo’s wood clones to observe their interaction. 

 

With her use of virtually untraceable genjutsu and her careful hold of her chakra she was the perfect candidate for the mission. The clone would stay further back, just in case she needed backup. They would need to keep careful watch over the next few days to make sure their plan had worked. 

 

That first night, Sakura didn’t find anything suspicious. They met up for dinner but their conversation was innocent and there was no hidden code that Sakura could discern. They went to their separate homes and Sakura made a clone so she could follow both, Tenzo’s clone dividing itself in two as well. She stayed for two hours watching them getting ready for bed and then falling asleep before she left Tenzo’s clone to keep watch disguised inside a tree to alert them if they moved. 

 

The rest of Team Ro had been waiting up with Tsunade and Shizune in their living room when she came back. She glanced briefly at Genma and Shizune but they seemed to be ignoring each other so she didn’t pay them any further notice. 

 

“Nothing,” she sighed, dropping on an armchair and pushing her ANBU mask away from her face. She scratched at the scar on her eyebrow, deep in thought. “I think they might have been celebrating, though. They don’t usually have dinner together like that, do they?”

 

From the inconspicuous surveillance Team Ro had been doing since they started all of this, Sakura already knew that it wasn’t a common occurrence for them. Still, it could have been about anything.

 

“They could have been celebrating that Naruto will be coming back,” Kakashi said, hands buried deep inside his pockets while he leaned against one of the sofas. “That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? For the jinchuriki to be locked inside Konoha.”

 

Sakura grunted, agreeing with him while Tsunade rubbed her temples. 

 

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” she said after a while. “We’ll keep Tenzo’s clones where they are and tomorrow night you tail them again, get close enough to see what they’re talking about.”

 

“Hai, Shishou,” Sakura said, sounding fierce but feeling tired. “I’m gonna eat something.”

 

“There’s leftovers in the fridge, Sakura-chan,” Shizune said, smiling slightly when Sakura sent her a heartfelt thanks.

 

“Dismissed, Team Ro,” Tsunade barked, getting up herself. “You have tomorrow morning off, and then you’ll pull a double shift afternoon and night.”

 

Team Ro followed her into the kitchen while Shizune stayed behind with Tsunade. Sakura opened the fridge, trying to decide if she had it in her to heat it up or if she should just eat it cold and go straight to bed. 

 

“Are you okay, Jiji?” she asked, voice casual but low so they wouldn’t be overheard. She pulled a few containers out of the fridge and shot Genma a quick look. He had bags under his eyes but he seemed alert and while there was a furrow between his brows, he didn’t look sad. 

 

“I shouldn’t be taking a break right now,” he said. 

 

Sakura put everything on the table and started reaching for a bowl before she spoke.

 

“Just take the goddamn break, Genma,” she frowned at him quickly but went back to serving herself. “Sweating the heartbreak out of your system works wonders, let me tell you. Take these few days to train and get drunk, will ya? We’re just doing recon anyway.”

 

“Wolfie-chan is right,” Yugao said, bumping her shoulder with his and smirking. “You also know that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

 

Genma huffed a laugh and Tenzo chuckled, Sakura smiled at them while she leaned against the counter and took a few experimental bites of her cold leftovers. 

 

“I take it we’re going to the Rusty Kunai, then?” Tenzo asked and Genma looked so surprised by the offer coming from him that he immediately agreed. 

 

“Are you going to eat that cold?” Kakashi asked, breaking through Team Ro’s plans to leave. He was leaning against the kitchen’s closed door and looking at her intently with his arms crossed. 

 

“Too tired,” Sakura said into her bowl with a small shrug. 

 

The next thing she knew, she was being pushed to sit on a chair, the bowl taken from her hands. Kakashi was halfway across the kitchen when she finally realised he was going to heat her dinner for her. She couldn’t help the tiny smile that formed on her lips but it was quickly dropped when she saw the looks her team was sending them.

 

“We’re going then,” Yugao said, wiggling her brows with a shit-eating grin on her pretty face. “You guys join us later if Wolfie-chan doesn’t pass out after dinner.”

 

“Hey!” Sakura complained, but there was a smile on her face again. Genma dropped a kiss to the top of her head and the three of them said their goodbyes, too quick to be natural.

 

“Take care of our girl, senpai~!” Yugao teased before they left, prompting Sakura to roll her eyes.

 

“Bitch,” she muttered quietly but Kakashi heard all the same and chuckled when he placed her bowl back in front of her. “Thanks.”

 

Kakashi hummed and settled on the seat next to her, book in hand. She was glad for his presence even if she wasn’t used to it. The sudden thought that he was waiting for her to get ready for bed to go to sleep next to her made her cheeks burn but Sakura studiously kept inhaling her food like she hadn’t eaten in two days. 

 

“I’m going to bed,” Tsunade announced loudly as she entered the kitchen and moved to get herself a glass of water. She shot the two of them a look before leaving. “Make sure you place a privacy seal, will you?”

 

Sakura spluttered and promptly choked on her rice, by the time she had enough air in her lungs to yell, Tsunade was already gone. She chanced a quick look at Kakashi. He seemed composed as he read his book but when she looked at him, he turned slightly to shoot her an amused look. 

 

“You have rice on your cheek,” he said, going back to his book.

 

Sakura brushed a rough hand over her face and focused back on her food with renewed fervour. When she was done, Kakashi got up and put his book back inside his pouch and then guided her from her chair with firm hands.

 

“Go shower,” he said. “I’ll take care of cleaning up.”

 

Sakura did as she was told, mainly because she was exhausted but also because it felt strangely good to have someone taking the reins like that. She had a million things going on inside her head but she didn’t really settle on any of them. She let the warm water of her shower soothe her muscles, hair secured up high on her head so she wouldn’t have to wait for it to dry before sleeping. 

 

She dressed in her silly pyjamas, uncaring of how she looked in front of him since he had seen her in much worse conditions before. Sakura went about her nightly routine and when she came out of the bathroom, Kakashi was just coming into her room. 

 

“There’s an extra toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet,” Sakura offered, not saying exactly what she was thinking. Are you staying the night? Do you really want to be here with me right now? Where do we go from last night? “I washed the uniform you were wearing a few weeks ago. Most of the top part was ruined but the undershirt only had a tiny rip and the pants were fine… If you would like to change before bed.”

 

Kakashi hummed slightly, moving to the right side of her bed to place his pouches on top of her bedside table. He was staying, then. That little action made Sakura’s stomach flutter uncomfortably, it excited her and terrified her that he was choosing to stay. She didn’t think she had it in her to stay awake for anything longer than a kiss and he seemed pretty aware of it but, still, was this something they were going to do from now on? 

 

A part of her baulked at the thought of crossing that line with him because of her track record with relationships. She didn’t have the civilian childhood dreams of marrying and having kids with the pretty boy in her class anymore but that didn’t mean that she had changed the way she loved completely. It was intense and all consuming and she couldn’t allow herself to be in a position to fall for someone if they weren’t completely invested in it as well.

 

Their talk had been reassuring, a lot of the apprehension she had carried for their situation had melted away with his words and skilled hands. The fact that he had not only wanted her in his space but also continued to seek her out since coming back from their mission was surely a good sign, but still. Sakura had to tread carefully. 

 

No matter how much he seemed to be okay with what they had, she couldn’t put herself in a position where she would be constantly asking for more. She would never go back to that. 

 

So Sakura made Inner place a couple more chains around the hidden box inside her head and smiled slightly at Kakashi before she moved to get the clothes she had kept for him. 

 

They didn’t speak much while he locked himself inside her bathroom and she went back to the kitchen to get some water. Sakura checked and double checked the seals and wards around the place before turning off all of the lights and closing her bedroom door behind her. Kakashi was already there, laying over the covers, one arm behind his head while the other held Icha Icha over his stomach.  

 

Sakura turned off the overhead lights and ambled towards the bed slowly, feeling sluggish from her long day and the nice sight of him in her bed. The dim light of the lamp beside him made it possible for him to read but it cast a warm glow on her room that made it all the more inviting for her to just fall right to sleep.

 

“Get beneath the covers,” she mumbled into her pillow. 

 

Her bed was slightly bigger than his, a full double instead of his big single but most importantly it had four pillows instead of one. Sakura snickered to herself while Kakashi did as he was told.

 

“What are you giggling about?” he asked, sounding amused.

 

“I wasn’t giggling.” Okay so maybe she had giggled. She was sleepy. “I was just thinking how much of a shinobi bachelor you are.”

 

Kakashi hummed in question. Sakura couldn’t quite see him with the way she was buried in her pillow and heavy blanket but she heard the sound of Icha Icha being placed on the nightstand and she raised her head just in time to see him stretching to turn off the light. 

 

“Kakashi, you live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, only have one pillow in your bed and not a single pair of pyjamas or sweats,” Sakura deadpanned, willing her eyes to adjust faster to the sudden darkness so she could see him. “I bet you only have one of everything in your kitchen.”

 

His arm suddenly slipped beneath her neck, aided by the way she was lifting herself slightly, and then Sakura was falling forward to slot against him. 

 

“I’ll have you know I have a set of four of everything,” he said a bit defensively but still sounding amused. Sakura snorted, feeling loose and lazy as she pressed closer to him, her nose pressed against the mask covering his neck, her whole body hugging him.

 

“I’m going to buy you some sweats next chance I get,” she mumbled against the warm material of his undershirt, wishing it was his skin instead. The thought had only just crossed her mind and her hand was already moving, dragging his mask down his face to pool at the base of his neck so she could nose her way to his pulse point. 

 

She took a deep breath, appreciating his scent with her enhanced senses, hand dropping bonelessly against his collarbone. Her leg was already hugging him to her but she settled further inside his arms, sighing contently as the sheer heat of him seeped through her clothes to warm her up further. It took him a few beats longer than normal to answer.

 

“Again with the pyjamas obsession.” His voice was lower than before and Sakura could hear the rumble of it and feel it in her hand. It sent a shiver down her spine which was followed by his hand, sliding from the nape of her neck to just before the curve of her ass before going back up again, this time beneath her shirt. 

 

Despite the cold outside, Sakura didn’t feel colder when the movement brought her shirt up. The heat of his hand warmed her up better than anything else and she couldn’t help but sigh against his neck.  

 

The heat turned into something else as she nosed at his neck and he continued with the languid strokes on her back. It was more pointed now, pooling low in her belly and making her press further against him. Her leg, previously raised to just above his knees, slid up before she could think the action through. His hand wrapped around her knee just before she could get close to her destination.

 

“Kakashi…” it wasn’t exactly a whine, too soft and breathy for it, but it was something embarrassingly close to it that Sakura pressed against his neck. 

 

The hand on her knee soothed over her skin and the one on her back pressed flatly to the base of her spine, halting her movements but not pushing her away. She released an embarrassingly needy sigh when his lips found hers.

 

Still, he kept it chaste, unbelievably controlled and slow, not letting it go anywhere.

 

“Tell me about the meditation you do at night,” he whispered the words against her forehead when he pressed a kiss there and Sakura could feel the slight smile at his lips when she shuddered. 

 

Despite his eager way of changing the subject and the way he had stopped her from going further, she didn’t feel dismissed. It was impossible to feel like that with his hands keeping her pressed against him, his voice soft but with a pleading undertone to it that she couldn’t ignore. He wanted this, she was sure, but she was exhausted and he knew it. 

 

So Sakura easily guided him through her process and meditated with him buried deep beneath the cocoon of her blankets. She wasn’t sure who fell asleep first but she did know that she had never felt warmer. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Sakura woke up early the next day like she usually did. That particular morning it seemed unfairly hard to leave the bed with Kakashi wrapped around her like he was and the warm blankets trapping the heat inside with them. She buried her nose deeper against his neck and groaned. 

 

Kakashi chuckled beneath her. His hand had found its way back to her back beneath her shirt and his fingers squeezed her softly.

 

“How are you not a morning person after keeping this crazy routine for years?” he asked, his voice unfairly raspy and deep making her scoot a bit closer to him.

 

“You can’t just change your predispositions,” Sakura complained, stretching a bit and immediately regretting it when it brought her further away from him. “I get up early but I only do it with heavy incentives.”

 

“Oh?” Kakashi moved his hands again and Sakura definitely didn’t gasp. 

 

“Hmhm.” Sakura shivered, her body suddenly feeling like there was a wild fire burning inside of her. 

 

“Should I give you some of those incentives, then?” Kakashi’s voice was positively sinful as he nosed his way up and down her neck before placing a slow open-mouthed kiss beneath her jaw. 

 

Sakura melted in his arms, her breath hitching in her chest when she felt his tongue against her skin. Kakashi pulled her closer to the point she was practically on top of him, the hand that had so far stayed on her back sliding inside her shorts to grab her ass. She didn’t realise she had let out a moan until she felt Kakashi’s chest trembling in silent laughter. 

 

She frowned. Suddenly feeling a bit vindictive after he had stopped her advances the night before, Sakura wasn’t particularly keen on letting him make her late for her own training session now that he was the one making said advances. She pulled back enough so she could sit up beside him, carefully avoiding paying attention to how hot his hand felt when it moved to her thigh. 

 

She had to get out of bed before she jumped the man. 

 

“You’re not making me late!” 

 

With jerky kicks of her feet she pushed the sheets away and quickly sat up, only turning her head slightly to send him a disapproving look. Kakashi didn’t seem the slightest bit apologetical but there was the slightest of pinks to his bare cheeks. Sakura wanted to jump him even more, unprepared for how cute he looked, even if a bit smug. 

 

“You’re too cute,” Sakura muttered to herself, getting up and stretching her hands to the ceiling as she started collecting her stuff to change. 

 

“Cute?” Kakashi asked incredulously and a bit flustered. Sakura nodded her head and sighed. 

 

“Cute."

 

The silence from his side of the room was deafening as Sakura finished putting on her clothes. With a smile trying to break through her resigned facade, she turned back to look at him on her way out.

 

“Come on, Hatake. Training.” 

 

Sakura summoned her pack again to join them in training but had to warn them through the mind link not to mention anything even close to their talk the day before. Kakashi fit in seamlessly and she was surprised by the deep satisfaction that realisation brought her. She wasn’t sure why she felt like that but it felt like something deep inside her purred at the thought that he fit within her pack like that. 

 

They went different ways to get ready for the day, Kakashi to his place where he would probably shower and then go to the cenotaph and Sakura back home to shower properly and then head out to the office. She went about her day like normal and even met up with Ino and Tenten to have some tea after Ino’s shift at T&I. At night, she geared up again and nodded swiftly to Team Ro, Tsunade and Shizune before disappearing from her living room.

 

Sakura was honestly tired from the night before and would have given everything to leave with Team Ro for the bar. Or spend the night with Kakashi. Alone.

 

Alas, this is how she served her village.

 

According to Tenzo’s clones, Koharu had gone to Homura’s house as soon as darkness fell and they were currently on the move. He couldn’t follow without being detected, so it was Sakura’s job to make sure they were watched without being noticed by possible ROOT agents. 

 

Under her genjutsu and with her chakra matching the wavelengths of a bat, she followed them. 

 

It wasn’t a surprise that they came to Danzo’s residence. It was a massive state near the Sarutobi’s land and while Sakura knew from Tenzo’s recognizance that there were tunnels beneath the place that led straight to ROOT’s headquarters, they didn’t go down below. 

 

There was a bitter sense of accomplishment sitting heavily on the back of Sakura’s throat like acid. She was extremely satisfied that after over five years of carefully setting their players on the board they could finally act more boldly against them but the sheer thought that this was real and they were meeting up in secret, made Sakura want to punch through their fragile little ribcages.

 

The killing intent that wanted to leak out of her was so intense she had to clench her fists when she moved close enough so she could read their mouths. From her position she could only see Homura and Koharu but it was enough to realise that they were talking about Usui and the advantage they would have to have him on their side against ‘that brat Tsunade’.

 

Sakura tried to close all of her emotions away and moved closer so she could take a position to see Danzo head on and read his lips. She put silent feet on top of an electrical pole and watched as he talked about her. 

 

Danzo was expressing his concern for her political advantage inside the village and that Sakura was raised on the same foolish principles that the Sandaime had disseminated across Konoha. He said they would bury Konoha to the ground, make them weak. Just look at what they had decided to do with the jinchuriki, they had to cut the cancer out before it spread even furth— 

 

His eye snapped to hers.

 

Sakura stayed completely still. She wasn’t even breathing, sweat beading at her temples but even that didn’t move. 

 

And then he was getting up, the ROOT members that Sakura had noticed hiding in the shadow following his hand signs—different ones from ANBU, she realised, she had to remember which ones he used to get the info back to Tsunade it could mean anything really from attack to pursue to ki —and then they were moving towards her. 

 

Sakura ran. She ran as fast as she could while keeping her chakra sealed away and her genjutsu in place. She went straight northwest and dropped her hold on her chakra just long enough to use an earth jutsu to slip through the barrier. It was a hidden ROOT entrance that she only knew about because Tenzo had made sure to keep it monitored with a tree nearby. The ROOT squad followed close behind. 

 

She couldn’t lose them. No matter how far she pulled ahead, no matter what kind of manoeuvre she did, they stayed on her tail. She couldn’t use her full chakra to run ahead lest they recognise the ability as one only Sakura had. If she had her chakra completely unleashed she could maybe kill the four of them but if just one recognised her and got word back to Konoha…

 

She didn’t know what would happen.

 

Sakura set her course slightly more north as she continued sprinting through the trees and tried to come up with a plan. Inner was busy cataloguing everything that she had seen and trying to help her come up with a pattern to her pursuers' fighting style so she focused on putting one foot in front of another and running like her life depended on it. Because it most certainly did and it wasn’t just her life on the line. 

 

Kakashi’s face suddenly crossed her mind, looking adorable first thing in the morning and she wanted to cry. Sakura clung to that image and pushed all of the doubts to the back of her mind as she kept running.

 

There was a sudden movement behind her and Sakura ducked just before a volley of kunai hit her, the trajectory indicating they would have hit her on the back of her neck. 

 

They weren’t aiming to capture.   

 

Sakura threw two kunai at the bark of some trees ahead of her and activated the enhanced exploding tags attached to them once she was through. She used her chakra control to enhance the muscles in her legs so they would propel her forward faster and used the explosion to hide the move in case they could recognise it as hers. 

 

It didn’t hold them back for long as she knew it wouldn’t but one of the four ninja fell behind because of the blast. She had her chance then and she didn’t waste any time in taking it.

 

Sakura simultaneously dropped the genjutsu while weaving another one over her features and clothes. She changed her hair to a mousy brown, chopped to mid-length and held back by a ponytail. Her clothes changed to look like she was wearing more traditional garb beneath the ANBU guards and her Wolf mask changed to a generic shape of a hunter nin.

 

She wasn’t sure she would be able to come out of this alive but she was sure as hell not incriminating Konoha. 

 

Sakura weaved a water jutsu sign, a weak D-ranked one because ninjutsu was still not her forte, and turned to attack. The jutsu was simply a distraction, a huge wave of water washing over them, and she used it to send more kunai towards her assailants. These ones didn’t have any tags on them but Sakura had weaved genjutsu over genjutsu on them in the little time she had so that there were kunai hidden in the shadows and then another set hidden beneath those. 

 

It wasn’t enough, Danzo’s guards were extremely capable, but it was enough to distract one of them while she moved in the fastest shunshin she had to decapitate one of them with her tanto. 

 

The sound of bugs buzzing their wings almost stopped Sakura in her tracks. 

 

So this was how they had tracked her even with the genjutsu hiding her. They had an Aburame in the ranks. 

 

Sakura grabbed several senbon with her left hand, coating them with a rare poison that could only be traced to Iwa, and used her right to engage the shinobi she had distracted with the kunai. Some of them had stuck on their arms and torso but they seemed okay enough to fight. 

 

Sakura used her speed to slip beneath his defences and slash him on the thigh but didn’t stop to finish him. She let her body continue her movement downwards and rolled while throwing the senbon she had prepared towards the Aburame. 

 

With another quick shunshin—she had to keep track of her chakra levels, holy fuck she had to make it back home, she had to make it back to—Sakura went over the senbon she had sent and slashed at the ninja with her bloodied tanto. 

 

The wave of insects that intercepted her assault was enough to send her through a tree but not enough to stop all of the senbon from reaching their target. She only needed one of them to hit and then he was dead. 

 

With another wave of senbon, these ones not coated with poison, Sakura aimed for the ninja she had semi incapacitated before. 

 

“Katon!” one of them yelled and that was all the warning she got before quick consecutive fire balls were sent in her direction. 

 

Sakura dodged them the best she could but one still caught her right arm. She used another quick water jutsu to douse the flames but couldn’t afford to use any type of iryo-ninjutsu to heal the damage. So far she had a few cuts and bruises and what seemed like a bruised rib from when she had gone through the tree. Nothing too major, but the fire had hit her from her shoulder all the way down to her elbow and her dominant arm was pretty much useless at that point. 

 

Sakura made the genjutsu appear like her long traditional sleeves had burnt down when in fact the lycra of her long sleeved ANBU shirt had melted away along with her skin. This wasn’t a half-hearted fire jutsu. It had been at least an A-rank one and the ninja was good at it. 

 

She chanced a quick glance behind her as she ran from tree branch to another to avoid the fire jutsu and noticed that she had already gotten three ninja. The first one she decapitated, the second one she had gotten with her tanto and senbon, and the Aburame who wasn’t completely down for the count but he was swaying so much on their feet that they couldn’t join in on the fight, their insects buzzing anxiously around them. 

 

Sakura only had to kill this one ninja and then she was free. 

 

If she breathed too deep, she could feel the broken rib nudging at her lung and she knew if she got one more hit the probability of it puncturing her lung was high. Fuck, if she moved wrong, she could pierce it. Then she would definitely have to use iryo-ninjutsu. 

 

Her plan was simple. Let one of them live so they could report back that Sakura had only used the skills of a hunter nin and some minor water jutsu and had disappeared in the border with Ame. The toxicology report on the poison would show that it was a poison jounin Iwa nin used and the question of whether she was an Ame ninja or an Iwa ninja would keep them occupied enough to not look into Konoha. 

 

Hopefully. If the Aburame hadn’t realised her identity before he died. If somehow the way Danzo had realised she was there had also told him who she was. If the explosion had been enough to distract them from seeing she had enhanced her jump. If— 

 

If she survived.

 

Sakura turned to send more senbon with her left arm while her right held her tanto uselessly. The maximum range she had on her burnt joints was only enough to hold the sword up in a defensive position but it still shook in her hands. The pain was immense but she didn’t numb her nerves just yet. 

 

She could see the ninja wasn’t exactly in top form anymore, the blast from her enhanced explosive tags had blinded one of his eyes and heavily burned his left forearm, but he was still standing. He used another fire jutsu but this time Sakura wasn’t preoccupied with someone else so it was much easier to avoid. 

 

She had to get up close and personal to counteract the long range reach of his jutsu and she had to do it now before the bone inevitably pierced her lungs and she drowned in her own blood. 

 

Sakura sent another water jutsu his way, hid four kunai—her last ones—behind the wave and followed. The shinobi had sent another fireball to counteract her water jutsu and both of them exploded in steam that made her eyes sting behind her mask. 

 

He was just distracted enough by the kunai she sent to let her get close. Sakura changed hands to hold her tanto and attacked him with brute force behind her hits. She didn’t need her chakra control to be strong enough to take him on, despite his size. His injured arm had been clearly his dominant one just like Sakura, but unlike her, he hadn’t been trained by Yugao.

 

Yugao had never accepted anything but excellence from Sakura during those early days Team Ro training sessions and Sakura had delivered. While the older woman could still win against her in a kendo spar, Sakura was better than this bastard. 

 

While her attacks with her left hand weren’t as smooth, her strength and precision were far better than the ROOT agent’s with his shaky grip on his sword. He was crafty, she’d give him that, still managing to hold his own for some time, but in the end Sakura’s tanto sliced through his throat like butter. 

 

She stored his body in a black scroll, mourning the fact she would have to leave the others behind lest the injured ROOT she had left alive recuperated enough to fight back. There was still the possibility that they weren’t the only ones on her tail, there had been enough hours since her discovery for a backup team to arrive, so one body would have to be enough. 

 

Sakura didn’t stop to catalogue her injuries before crossing the border into Ame. She crossed the first river she found by wading through the dark water then doubled back so she could enter fire country again. She could stop and heal herself but the truth was she wasn’t sure it was the right move.

 

If she wasn’t back home by the time the village woke up, her absence would be noticed and she knew all of her efforts that night would have been for nothing. There was still the possibility that she had been made either way but she had to do everything in her power to draw suspicion away from herself. There was the problematic part that it would be useless if she came back to the village fast enough but didn’t have it in her to disguise herself before going home. 

 

Still, Sakura took a moment to take a deep breath. Now that she wasn’t in immediate danger, her heart gave a dull pang at the fact that these had been Konoha ninja despite it all. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she banished it. Instead, she slowly released her breath as she catalogued her injuries again. Her lung had been pierced like she figured it would and she had gained a few extra cuts courtesy from her last sword fight. The burn was considerably big and the risk of infection was high. Sakura could already feel a fever setting in as she rested. Her chakra reserves were at thirty-three per cent. 

 

Sakura ran. 

 

She ran as fast as she could, using point-two per cent of her chakra to put the genjutsu that would render her invisible over herself, ten per cent of it to enhance the muscles in her legs so she could go as fast as she had when racing Kakashi back home a few days ago and another ten per cent to heal the worst of her injuries. 

 

It wasn’t enough, she knew that. Her vision blurred even when her senses were automatically enhanced to match her pack’s and her heartbeat was through the roof, but she didn’t have a choice. She had to go back home. She couldn’t disappear or Danzo would figure out exactly who had been spying on him. 

 

Sakura felt some of the composure she had during missions slip. The pain in her arm was so overwhelming, her breaths short and equally as painful from her punctured lung. This wasn’t a normal mission where she would be okay with dying doing what she had to. If she died out there, at this moment, everything would be lost.

 

Five years of trying to pull ahead, the carefully put together council and team, all of it. She would have failed her village. She would have failed Sasuke and the justice the Uchiha were owed. She would have failed her team and her friends. She would have failed Tsunade.

 

A sob caught in her throat and Sakura was surprised to feel tears sliding down her cheeks and pooling against the edge of her mask. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried during a mission that was still unfinished.  

 

She couldn’t help it though, because the next thought that came to her, unbidden, was of him. Kakashi. Every touch they’d shared, every warm look and quiet conversations that spoke of so much trust between them—she didn’t want it to end there. 

 

Sakura tried to recall the last time she kissed him and couldn’t. Would her last interaction with him be a perfunctory nod given in the general direction of Team Ro? Had she kissed him when they parted ways after training? No, would the last time she had seen his face be that calm morning they shared, waking up slowly in each other’s arms? It was like as soon as her focus shifted from her duty to her village to him, he was all she could think about, all consuming and suffocating. 

 

Sakura felt almost delirious with the anguish and heartbreak she felt. Still, she focused on the searing path the tears burned in her cheeks and used her pain to propel her forward. She would make it back. She had to. 

 

She would make it back home, give her report, heal herself and then she would kiss Kakashi until she passed out. She would survive this week and then give Naruto the tightest hug he had ever received in his entire fucking life. She had to.

 

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END NOTES BC THEY DIDN’T FIT IN THE BOX:

 

Oooooh this chapter was an emotional rollercoaster lmfao sorry not sorry? I wrote the first draft for it TWO YEARS AGO but I wanted to keep it with me until I had enough chapters to not leave you guys in suspense for months at a time since my muse was so wonky. Turns out it was burnout lmao and thank god I held it back because as soon as I posted the last chapter (… exactly a year ago) things took a turn for the worse. Which is fun because I really thought I’d reached rock bottom but turns out there was a secret trapdoor I could go through all along!

[To keep you guys updated on my life lol I was actually just being a lil crazy when I said I wanted to go into medicine lol I spent like four months studying it, blew a lot of money on books and courses and then had a bit of a breakdown, went to therapy about it and realised I was just trying to satisfy everyone around me and “fulfill my potential” but finally, FINALLY, I’m currently doing something I love. I’m currently in film school, I’m acting, writing, directing, dancing, painting, and playing music and it’s so so chaotic and not at all traditional but I’m so legitimately happy, it’s insane to compare myself to how I was a year ago. I also found out a few other fun chronic illnesses I didn’t even suspect I had but I’m actually looking at life differently and yeah, this all to say that it’s never too late to actually do what you like. I did a thread on twt for a reread of DoF a while ago and reading these AN’s always made me feel nostalgic and weird because I started this fic when I was 18/19 and I just turned 24 this wednesday. It’s like I’m watching not only my writing improve but also myself as a person. Being a human being is so weird and kinda heartbreaking but it’s also so beautiful sometimes it lowkey makes me wanna cry. If you feel comfortable and want to, please share something about your life with me! I really missed having you guys talk to me constantly ;’)]

So… I actually didn’t write much ahead of this! I have until chapter 56 planned down to the littlest details and the rest of the story (and the very likely snapshot sequel) planned out but I’m currently only finishing writing chapter 48. That being said, I did a lot of thinking and freaking out about fanfiction and this story in particular when I shifted my focus towards a creative career and now I’m taking things a bit more lightly, I guess you can put it that way. I was super anxious about directing any creative energy towards writing fanfiction when this isn’t even a story I could someday change a few things and publish and nowadays I’m mostly writing scripts which is a whole other format of writing so I couldn’t even justify it to myself as writing practice. BUT! After a lot of thinking and trying to deal with this infernal writer’s block I came to the conclusion that…….. bro, it’s not that serious. LMFAO like I put so much pressure on myself to act “professional” with this fic, I used to force myself to write and have everything figured out and a big part of it was because I had fun doing it but there was always an element of obligation to it that I HATED. The reason I’m posting this chapter is because I reconnected with the part of myself that loves this story to pieces, I’ve been having fun reading it, I’ve been daydreaming about it and answering your comments and just loving the process of it all so really, it’s been so much easier just sitting down and… writing. The thing about procrastination and writer’s block is that it really just all boils down to getting yourself out of your head, sitting down and writing (doing the things you know need to be done).

On that note, I’m not scared of never finishing this story. If after going through most of my formative years as a young adult I haven’t lost interest in it, I probably won’t until I manage to finish it, for starters xD Then there’s the fact that I genuinely love doing this, I love writing it, researching for it, editing it, I love talking to people about it and obsessing about it with my online friends. I love, love, LOVE, receiving your comments and interacting with you guys here or on tumblr/twt/discord, I just love it so much! So yeah! To keep up to date with what I’m writing, I’ll always keep my AO3 profile updated, I’m kinda active on tumblr/twt/discord and you can always reach out whenever!

ABOUT THE CHAPTER NOW FINALLY!

The first part of this chapter with the wolves is so precious to my heart! When I first outlined this chapter it wasn’t included, it was just one of those things that kinda wrote itself and I love it all the more for it.

NARUTO IS COMING BACK BITCHEZZZZZZZZZ…. In a bit xD After you guys spent literal YEARS pestering me about him, I really hope it lives up to your expectations of it lmao

I’m so so happy to be able to develop kksk’s relationship!!! Like, taking my time to develop their interactions as a couple and seeing how they fit or how some things are still tentative because they’re still in the early stages and just!!! THE ROMANCE. I’m surprising myself with it, which I’m enjoying tremendously. I hope you guys are too!

Danzo using his sharingan on Sakura is something I had planned for quite some time and I’m actually SO EXCITED for it! Also this fight Sakura had while pretending to be someone else, with her chakra capped and trying to mask her signature moves. It’s really one of those things I planned YEARS ago and now that it’s finally seeing the light of day I’m like shaking in my seat waiting for your reaction xD Also! I find I quite enjoy writing with a somewhat unreliable narrator! Like, Sakura is very observant and you’ll see how this is developed but at this point we know Danzo saw her chakra moving closer with the sharingan but she doesn’t and it’s kinda juicy ngl

ANYWAY. I felt like I was owed a bit of an extra large AN this time but it’s just because I miss you guys and I miss doing this. Thank you so much for all the reviews last chapter, I think I managed to answer them all!!!! Please let me know you’re still here because I’ve been super anxious about posting this and just being met with crickets lol idk ily bye <3